The director of Tahrir Hospital at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza has warned that the children of the besieged Palestinian territory have reached the most severe stage of malnutrition.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra said in a statement on Wednesday that due to the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, it has become extremely difficult to monitor the health of Gaza children.

“It is extremely difficult to monitor them medically due to a lack of therapeutic medicines and infant formula,” Farra said.

“The lack of adequate nutrition and medicine for pregnant mothers has a dangerous impact on newborns, especially premature babies.”

According to Farra, the continued prevention of food and medicine supplies indicates that Gaza’s children are facing a dangerous and catastrophic scenario.

The condition of the child “Osama Al-Raqab” summarizes Gaza’s suffering due to the lack of proper nutrition and drinking water, Farra said.

Osama Al-Raqab is a six-year-old Palestinian child who has been suffering from acute malnutrition since the Israeli regime imposed the blockade, and according to his family, is close to death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned that the Gaza Strip is in the fifth stage of famine and malnutrition.

The UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has defined “phase 5 of famine” as “areas where at least one in five households experience an extreme lack of food and face starvation resulting in destitution, extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.”

Meanwhile, the heads of 12 major aid groups in the enclave have said that in addition to the siege, the Israeli regime’s constant bombing has resulted in Gaza children surviving on less than a meal per day.

“Kids are eating less than a meal a day and struggling to find their next meal … Everyone is purely eating canned food … Malnutrition and pockets of famine are definitely occurring in Gaza,” said Bushra Khalidi, the policy head of the aid group Oxfam NGO.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Khalil Deqran said that as the siege enters its sixth week, at least 60,000 Gaza children show symptoms of acute malnutrition.

Furthermore, this number belongs to the children that the Ministry has been able to identify and record. The Ministry has been unable to examine hundreds of thousands of children across Gaza.

Since the blockade began, all 25 UN-supplied bakeries making bread have been shut, with aid agencies warning that the population is on the precipice of starvation and mass disease.

Since March 2, when Israel broke its ceasefire agreement with Hamas, its forces have imposed a total blockade on the strip. It also resumed its attacks on Gaza on March 18.