THE UN’s World Food Programme says food insecurity in Gaza is “catastrophic”, with at least 40,000 children under age one suffering from malnutrition.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded four more hunger-related deaths over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of Palestinians who starved to death during Israel’s war on Gaza to 239, including 106 children.
At least 32 Palestinians, including 13 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn in Israeli attacks on Gaza today.
Also, at least 35 people, including 13 seeking aid, have been killed on Thursday in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, as four more people died from malnutrition amid a growing starvation crisis in the besieged territory.
Eight people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential home in Gaza City in northern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Two other people were killed in an Israeli attack on the city’s Tuffah neighbourhood, hospital sources told Al Jazeera.
The killings come as Israel escalates its attacks on Gaza City, the largest city in the enclave, after the country’s security cabinet approved plans for the military to seize the city, an operation that could forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.
The plan has received international condemnation from the United Nations and even dissent from within Israel’s own military.
Al Jazeera correspondents reported on Thursday that large swaths of northern Gaza have been turned into “lifeless wastelands” amid the Israeli escalation.
Palestinians in Gaza City have spoken of their fears of further displacement, following an Israeli forced evacuation order to areas further south, in advance of the proposed occupation.
Walaa Sobh said she had already been displaced during the war from the northern city of Beit Lahiya to Gaza City, and was unable to move again.
“We’re afraid to move anywhere else, because we have nowhere to go, no income – and I am a widow,” she told Al Jazeera.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,776 people and wounded 154,906. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
