UNICEF: About 3,000 children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition and are at risk of death

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The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday that about 3,000 children suffering from malnutrition are at risk of death due to being denied the necessary treatment as a result of the Israeli attack on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNICEF indicated, in a statement, “a slight improvement in the delivery of food aid to the northern Gaza Strip, while humanitarian access to the south has decreased significantly, exposing more children to the risk of malnutrition,” according to what the “United Nations News” website reported, explaining. “Horrific violence and displacement are impacting desperate families’ access to healthcare facilities and services.”

For her part, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khader, said, “Horrific images from Gaza show children dying in front of their families due to continued shortages of food and nutritional supplies and the destruction of health care services.” Khader stressed, “Unless treatment is quickly resumed for 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of contracting serious illnesses, developing life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls killed by senseless, man-made deprivation.”

“The organization’s warnings of escalating child deaths due to a preventable combination of malnutrition, dehydration and disease should have mobilized immediate action to save children’s lives, yet this devastation continues,” she said. She added: “With hospitals destroyed, treatment halted, and supplies scarce, we are preparing for more children’s suffering and deaths.”

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza that has left nearly 122,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of children and the elderly.