UN humanitarians reiterated their resolve on Tuesday to help the people of Gaza, where increasing numbers of children are on “the brink of death” from acute hunger, caused by five months of intense Israeli bombardment and constant aid access denials.

“What doctors and medical staff are telling us is more and more they are seeing the effects of starvation; they’re seeing newborn babies simply dying because they (are) too low birth weight,” said Dr Margaret Harris from the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

In response to the findings of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza published on Monday, UN human rights chief Volker Türk insisted that “hunger, starvation and famine” were the result of Israel’s “extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods”, mass population displacement and the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure.

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    8 months ago

    While infants and young children are among the least able to cope with chronic hunger according to WHO, the UN health agency said that medical teams in the war-shattered enclave have been admitting increasing numbers of dangerously underweight pregnant women.

    “This is entirely man-made, everything we’re seeing medically; this was a territory where the health system functioned well,” said Dr Harris, adding that malnutrition was “non-existent”. “It was a population that could feed itself,” she insisted.