The United Nations warned again today (Friday) that famine in the Gaza Strip “has become almost inevitable, unless something changes,” with official statistics showing that dozens of children have died of hunger, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.

The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have certain criteria to determine the state of famine, and they have not yet been announced in the Gaza Strip, despite the catastrophic situation there.

But “until a famine is declared, it is too late for many,” according to what Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), confirmed.

In Somalia in 2011, when the famine was officially declared, half of the total number of victims of the disaster had died of starvation.

Laerke said at the regular United Nations press conference on Friday in Geneva: “We do not want to reach this situation, and things must change.”

For his part, World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said that according to official statistics collected by the Hamas authorities that control the Gaza Strip, the deaths of dozens of children were officially recorded due to malnutrition.

He added that this number is certainly lower than the actual numbers.

Laerke pointed out that the deaths constitute warning signs that are “very worrying because food security before this conflict in Gaza was not that bad.”

He added: “People had food, they were able to produce their own food, and now even food production in Gaza has become almost impossible.”

He pointed out that before the war launched by Israel against Hamas in Gaza since the movement’s attack on Israel on October 7, “fishing was an important source of nutrition, income, and the ability to provide food, all of which completely stopped.