SAEDNEWS: Gaza faces a grave risk of famine, with one in three people going days without food, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
UNICEF on Friday urged the international community to act swiftly as conditions continue to deteriorate due to Israel’s genocidal war, Al Jazeera reported.
“Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition,” Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations, said in a statement on Friday following a recent trip to Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
He said the malnutrition indicator in Gaza has “exceeded the famine threshold”.
“Today, I want to keep the focus on Gaza, because it’s in Gaza where the suffering is most acute and where children are dying at an unprecedented rate,” he said.
“We are at a crossroads, and the choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die.”
On Saturday, Atef Abu Khater, a 17-year-old Palestinian, died of malnutrition, a medical source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera.
Earlier this week, Khater, who had been in good health before the war in Gaza, was hospitalized in intensive care, according to media reports, which quoted his father as saying he was no longer responding to treatment.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli regime’s war on Gaza has killed at least 60,000 Palestinians, more than 18,000 of them children. Many more remain buried under the rubble, most presumed dead.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the number of deaths from starvation in the territory stands at 162, including 92 children.
