MADRID (AP) — A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” has died after being transferred to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday.
The patient was admitted to Pisa University Hospital late Wednesday and died on Friday. She was removed from the Gaza Strip as part of a humanitarian mission and arrived with a “with a very complex, compromised clinical picture,” according to the hospital.
She died after entering a respiratory crisis and subsequently going into cardiac arrest, it said in a statement.
Hospital staff had performed tests and started supportive therapy before she died, the statement said.
The woman, named by Italian media as Marah Abu Zuhri, had arrived in Italy with her mother.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said almost 120 Palestinians — 31 patients and their families — had been flown to Rome, Milan and Pisa on three planes.
In a post on X, Tajani said that it was the 14th medical evacuation of Palestinians that Italy had conducted since January 2024, and the largest.
The hospital did not specify whether the woman had suffered from malnutrition, but said that she had arrived in a “state of severe physical deterioration.”
Eugenio Giani, leader of the Tuscan region, expressed his condolences Saturday for the woman’s death.
Earlier in the week, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that starvation and malnutrition in Gaza were at their highest levels since the Israel-Hamas war began.
The U.N. says nearly 12,000 children under 5 were found to have acute malnutrition in July — including more than 2,500 with severe malnutrition, the most dangerous level. The World Health Organization says the numbers are likely an undercount.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month no one in Gaza is starving. “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump responded to Netanyahu’s claim by noting the images emerging of emaciated people. “I don’t know,” Trump said when asked if he agreed with the Israeli leader’s comment. “I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.”
Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed around triple the amount of food into Gaza than what had been entering since late May.
That was after two and a half months when Israel barred all food, medicine and other supplies, saying it was to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken during its October 2023 attack that launched the war.
