Severe malnutrition among children under five has tripled at
a Gaza City clinic in just two weeks, according to Médecins Sans Frontières
(Doctors Without Borders). Multiple aid agencies and health officials warn of
an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, with one in four young children and
pregnant or breastfeeding women now malnourished throughout Gaza.
Why has Malnutrition in Gaza's Children Reached Crisis Levels?
According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), rates of
severe malnutrition in under-5s at one of its Gaza City clinics have tripled in
the past fortnight, with the overall number of those enrolled for treatment
quadrupling since May 2025.
Caroline Willemen, project coordinator for MSF in Gaza, told ABC News:
"We are now enrolling 25 new patients every single day for malnutrition. We see the exhaustion and the hunger in our own colleagues".
Her
remarks highlight the dual pressure faced by both Gaza’s medical teams and the
wider population.
Across MSF’s clinics, screenings of children aged six months to five years as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women revealed that 25% are currently malnourished, a figure the organisation calls “unprecedented”. Mercy Corps, another humanitarian group, reported a dramatic spike in testimonies from desperate parents, including one who said:
“Last night, I was thinking about killing my children because I can’t take proper care of them or raise them in a good way… I can’t even provide food. I had to send them to neighbouring tents to beg for bread to feed. I truly don’t know what to do anymore”.
What Are the Human Stories Behind the Statistics?
In an interview with ABC News, Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain, a volunteer at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and data worker with MSF, confirmed:
“There are only four stabilisation centres for malnutrition in Gaza, and the admission capacity is severely limited due to overcrowding of facilities. Emergency rooms are now overwhelmed not just by war injuries, but also by people collapsing from hunger”.
Alamrain recounted:
“A kid came to our house like two days ago begging for something to eat, a piece of bread. We don’t have any. We gave him from our lunch, a cup of chickpeas. Life feels dystopian recently”.
Dr Mohamed El-Deeb of the Palestine Red Crescent Society at Al Quds Hospital, as quoted by the British Red Cross, described the everyday reality for Gaza’s children:
“Children are suffering from severe malnutrition … They get dizzy, they get tired, they get drowsy, they get malnourished. We have received a lot of cases who are suffering from severe malnutrition and even sometimes collapse in their sleep because of their malnutrition”.
Deaths Attributed to Starvation
Citing figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, ABC News
reported that 27 people, including children, died of hunger in the most recent
three-day period, bringing the total to 113 starvation-related deaths since
October 2023, with 81 of them being children.
Spikes in Severe Malnutrition
- The
United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) stated that one in
five children in Gaza City are malnourished and most “are emaciated, weak
and at high risk of dying if they don’t get the treatment they urgently
need,” according to agency chief Philippe Lazzarini.
- UNICEF’s
regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbede,
told ABC News that for two weeks in July, 5,000 children were admitted to
clinics with acute malnutrition, and the number of acute malnutrition
cases detected in Gaza City alone is four times higher than in February
2025.
- Dr
Zaher Sahloul, president of MedGlobal, explained: “Nineteen children were
recently admitted to our clinics in Gaza suffering from severe acute
malnutrition, a number our organisation has never seen. Five of those
children, between three months and 4.5 years old, died over a 72-hour
period”.
Addressing the Shortage of Food and Supplies
As reported by the British Red Cross on July 24, 2025, Palestine Red Crescent medical teams are battling against aid shortages while nearly 470,000 people—22% of Gaza’s population—face the imminent threat of starvation. Dr El-Deeb stated:
“There is a severe deficiency of all the necessary equipment, such as the flour, sugar and the essential proteins and carbohydrates for every single individual”.
According to Caroline Willemen of MSF,
“This is not just hunger—it’s deliberate starvation, manufactured by the Israeli authorities. The weaponisation of food to exert pressure on a civilian population must not be normalised. Israeli authorities must allow food and aid supplies into Gaza at scale”.
Obstacles to Aid Delivery
UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini revealed the agency has 6,000 truckloads of food and medical supplies ready to enter Gaza, but access remains blocked:
“UNRWA frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all”.
MSF and other major aid groups, including over 100 who
signed a joint statement this week, warned mass starvation in Gaza is imminent
unless humanitarian access is restored rapidly.
Calls for Immediate Action
The British Red Cross, MSF, and other organisations stress
urgent, unrestricted humanitarian access. They highlight that, after 20 months
of conflict, Gaza’s infrastructure essential for electricity, water and medical
care has been devastated, compounding the crisis for displaced communities.
Dr Zaher Sahloul cautioned:
“This is an emergency because up to 50% of children with severe acute malnutrition can die. Without a dramatic increase in the amount of aid entering, more children will die”.
What Is the Situation Inside Gaza Hospitals?
According to ABC News, Caroline Willemen of MSF reported that on July 19 and 20 at Al-Helou Hospital, MSF teams could not provide food to women and children in the paediatric and maternity wards, and there was not enough baby formula for the 23 neonates in intensive care. Similarly, at Nasser Hospital, 168 patients could not access food. Willemen warned:
“We are already starting to hear reports of more children dying. That is coming… when it tips over, it is really hard to put that in reverse. It’s getting to a point where they need therapeutic feeding and treatment, not just more food supplies. This is going to start to snowball and be very hard to walk that back”.
Are Humanitarian Workers and Medical Staff Also Suffering?
MSF’s project coordinator for Gaza, Caroline Willemen, emphasised
“We see the exhaustion and the hunger in our own colleagues”.
UNRWA’s
Lazzarini stated that even frontline health workers are struggling to survive,
underscoring the breadth of the crisis.
What Is Happening to Gaza’s Youngest and Most Vulnerable?
Medical statistics indicate a sharp and alarming escalation in child malnutrition since the conflict intensified and access to food supplies collapsed. MSF data points to the number of severely malnourished children under five at its Gaza City clinic tripling in just the last two weeks, reflecting a worsening emergency.
What Are Families Saying?
Mercy Corps relayed to ABC News the harrowing testimonials it hears daily from parents:
“Everyone is spending their day in pursuit of how they’re going to feed themselves. They’re losing hope. They’re wondering if they or their families will come on the other side alive”
stated Kate
Phillips-Barasso, Mercy Corps’ vice president for global policy and advocacy.
Who Is to Blame and What Are the International Reactions?
According to MSF, the “deliberate starvation of people” has been manufactured by Israeli authorities, who have been accused of using food as a weapon of war by severely restricting entry of aid convoys. Israel, for its part, rejects allegations that it is deliberately inducing famine, arguing that previous aid mechanisms were abused by Hamas, and insists on its own conditions for aid entry.
What Next for Gaza’s Children?
With aid agencies warning that “the situation is only
getting worse” and that “more children will die” unless the blockade on
humanitarian relief is lifted, the international community faces mounting
pressure to act. The United Nations, MedGlobal, MSF and the British Red Cross
all urge for urgent, large-scale aid delivery routes to be opened to stem what
multiple groups describe as an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.