In June, Nour el-Hourani watched with tears in her eyes as doctors tried to revive her baby. Her son, five-month-old Abdel Aziz, had been starving since the day he was born, and now his heart had stopped beating. The lights in the neonatal unit flickered from a lack of fuel in the hospital’s generator, occasionally leaving doctors to work in the dark. They administered adrenaline and oxygen and used their fingers to pump his chest. For several minutes, the heart rate monitor showed a flat line.
The doctors kept trying long after what was usual for resuscitation and eventually got a pulse. Abdel Aziz was still unconscious but breathing again with the help of machines. His belly was bloated and his limbs were too thin for an infant, telltale signs of malnourishment. By this age, he should have been about double his birth weight. But he weighed less than he had when he was born.