The Gaza Health Ministry reported the deaths of nine more people due to starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, highlighting the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave. This tragic toll underscores a disaster described by aid organisations as entirely preventable.

The United Nations has issued a stark warning: Gaza will run out of specialised therapeutic food for severely malnourished children by mid-August. Supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), essential for treating acute malnutrition, are dangerously low. Current stocks can only cover treatment for around 3,000 children, yet over 5,000 children were treated in just the first half of July.

Since April, more than 20,500 children in Gaza have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, with over 3,200 suffering from its most severe form. Hunger-related deaths have surged, with at least 83 children among 122 total fatalities recorded by the Health Ministry. The crisis has worsened amid Israeli restrictions blocking humanitarian aid, a collapsing healthcare system, and the ongoing war that began in October 2023.

Nearly 100,000 women and children urgently require nutritional treatment, but without immediate reopening of aid corridors, the risk of widespread child deaths grows daily. Essential nutrition programmes for pregnant women and young children teeter on the brink of collapse.

A WHO spokesperson described the situation as “not just a health emergency, but a moral one,” blaming the deaths on blocked food and medicine rather than disease. Humanitarian agencies call for urgent, unrestricted access to Gaza, replenishment of therapeutic foods, a lasting ceasefire, and protection for aid workers.

Without swift international action, Gaza faces a preventable famine unfolding before the world’s eyes, threatening its youngest and most vulnerable.