The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that about 3,000 children suffering from malnutrition are at risk of death due to being denied the necessary treatment as a result of the Israeli attack on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNICEF indicated, in a statement on Wednesday, “a slight improvement in the delivery of food aid to the northern Gaza Strip, while humanitarian access to the south has decreased significantly, putting more children at risk of malnutrition.”

The organization explained that "horrifying violence and displacement are affecting desperate families' access to health care facilities and services."

UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khader, said, “Horrific images from Gaza show children dying in front of their families due to continuing shortages of food and nutrition supplies and the destruction of health care services.”

Khader stressed, “Unless treatment is quickly resumed for 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of developing serious illnesses, developing life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls killed by senseless, man-made deprivation.”

She said, "The organization's warnings of escalating child deaths due to a preventable combination of malnutrition, dehydration and disease should have led to immediate action to save children's lives. However, this devastation continues."

She added: “With hospitals destroyed, treatment halted, and supplies scarce, we are preparing for more children’s suffering and deaths.”

The Regional Director noted that "UNICEF has more food supplies already prepared to enter the Gaza Strip if access permits."

She stressed "the need for better operating conditions on the ground through which safety is increased and restrictions are reduced, but she stressed that in the end, what children need most is a ceasefire."