Al Jazeera's correspondent said that the number of deaths among children in Kamal Adwan Hospital (northern Gaza Strip) due to malnutrition and lack of medicine rose to 13, while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned of a disaster threatening the future of the children of the Strip as these conditions continue.

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital announced the death of 7 children the day before yesterday, Friday, noting that the children are facing severe dehydration and malnutrition, as the hospital is out of service.

The risk of death for infants in the northern Gaza Strip is increasing, due to the food shortage and famine that has intensified over the past few days.

According to Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the Children’s Hospital at Kamal Adwan Medical Complex in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, the situation is catastrophic inside the hospital’s nursery department, due to the lack of milk and food provided to children.

Abu Safiya said - in previous statements to Al Jazeera - that most of the cases arriving at Kamal Adwan Complex are of children without parents and without mothers, and therefore the hospital is responsible for their nutrition.

Shocking news

For her part, Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, warned that one in every 6 children under the age of two in Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition.

She described the reports from Gaza that at least 10 children have died due to malnutrition and dehydration so far as horrific.

She added - via the X platform - that acute malnutrition can lead to death or cause cognitive and physical disabilities in children.

Amid the worsening hunger crisis in the besieged Strip, the United Nations warned weeks ago that a quarter of the Gaza Strip's population of 2.2 million is one step away from famine.

World Food Program Deputy Director Karl Skau said last week that Gaza is experiencing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world, adding that if nothing changes, famine is imminent in northern Gaza.

The continuation of the Israeli aggression against Gaza for 5 months and its prevention of the entry of aid into the Strip, as well as the freezing of funding by a number of countries, led by the United States, of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), led to a severe shortage of basic foodstuffs and infant formula.

Since the seventh of last October, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip that has left tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure, which led to Tel Aviv appearing before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide. Collective.