A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.

Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.

The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.

Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.

“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”

In other developments:

• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks

• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”

• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine

• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same

‘They were shells’

Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.

The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.

“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.

Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.

“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.

“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”

IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’

Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.

He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.

“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”

Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.

“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.

“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.

“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.

“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”

Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.

It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.

More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.

UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.

Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”

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Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.

Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.

Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.

Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.

It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.

Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.

Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.

Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.

Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.

“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.

Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.

What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?

‘Civilian areas targeted’

Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.

“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.

A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.

The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.

‘Conflict not spreading’

Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.

Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.

He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.

Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.

The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.

A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.

Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.

Read more on Sky News:
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Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.

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Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.

In Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, they have virtually nothing left to eat.

Warning: This article contains images that some readers may find distressing.

Huda has lost half her body weight since March, when Israel shut the crossings into Gaza, and imposed a blockade.

The 12-year-old girl knows she doesn’t look well.

“Before, I used to look like this,” Huda says, pointing to a picture on her tablet.

“The war changed me. Malnutrition has turned my hair yellow because I lack protein. You see here, this is how I was before the war.”

Her mother says her needs are simple: fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, maybe a little meat – but she won’t find it here.

Huda can only wish for a brighter future now.

“Can you help me travel abroad for treatment? I want to be like you. I’m a child. I want to play and be like you,” she says.

Amir’s story

Three-year-old Amir was sitting in a tent together with his mother, father and his grandparents when it was hit by projectiles.

Medical staff carried out surgery on his intestines and were able to stop the bleeding – but they can’t feed him properly.

Instead, he’s given dextrose, a mixture of sugar and water which has no nutritional value.

Amir’s mother and his siblings were all killed in the attack and his father is no longer able to speak.

“His father is in a terrible state and won’t accept the reality. What did these children do? Tell me, what was their crime?” Amir’s aunt says.

The desperate scenes of hungry children in Gaza have not been caused by scarcity.

There’s plenty of food waiting at the crossings or held in warehouses within the territory. Israel claims the United Nations is failing to distribute it.

Both Israel and the US have taken charge of the food distribution, with the UN’s hundreds of aid centres shut.

Instead, the UN tries to organise convoys but says it can’t obtain the necessary permits – and faces draconian restrictions on aid.

Sometimes food is made available at communal kitchens called ‘tikiya’.

‘I want life to be how it was’

Everyone is desperate for whatever they can get – and many leave with nothing.

“It’s been two months since we’ve eaten bread,” one young girl says. “There’s no food, there’s no nutrition. I want life to go back to how it was, I want meat and flour to come in. I want the end of the tikiya.”

Read more:
Gazan doctor held in ‘inhumane’ conditions
Starvation ‘knocking on every door’ in Gaza

Dr Adil Husain, an American doctor who spent two weeks at Nasser Hospital, treated a three-year-old called Hasan while he was there.

Weighing just 6kg, Hasan should be 15kg at his age.

“He needs special feeds, and these feeds are literally miles away. They’re literally right there at the border, but it’s being blockaded by the forces, they’re not letting them in, so it’s intentional and deliberate starvation,” Dr Husain tells me.

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Hasan died two days after Dr Husain examined him.

“It’s just so distressing that this is something man-made, this is a man-made starvation, this is a man-made crisis,” he says.

Israel says it has not identified starvation, but this feels like a situation that is entirely preventable.