
At least 60 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza as risk of famine looms
The dead include at least 10 people in the southern city of Khan Younis, four in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nine in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to Gaza's health ministry.
The strikes, over a 24 hour period, were the latest in a series of attacks that have been part of Israel's renewed offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
On Friday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said 629 Palestinians have been killed in the last week in Gaza, with women and children making up at least 148 of the victims.
It comes as Israel attempts to occupy all of Gaza and heavily restrict the import of any goods into the territory.
This has caused alarm among humanitarian organisations and sparked fierce criticism from Israel's international partners, including the US and UK.
There are warnings that Gaza could face famine in the near future, if the amount of aid being let in does not dramatically increase.
The IDF said 107 aid trucks were let in on Thursday, and the World Food Programme (WFP) said a "handful" of their bakeries were now baking again after receiving "limited" supplies.
But the WFP said 15 of these trucks were looted while en route to bakeries last night.
Director of the WFP, Cindy McCain, said they had enough food sitting at Gaza's border to feed its two million people for two months.
It is estimated that around 600 trucks a day are needed to meet basic needs.
The WFP said in a statement: "Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity.
"We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire."
Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living in 'catastrophic' levels of hunger, with one million others barely able to get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.
The Palestinian health minister told Al Jazeera on Thursday that at least 29 children and elderly people have died from 'starvation-related' deaths in the Gaza Strip in recent days.
More than 9,000 children have been treated for malnutrition this year, according to the UN children's agency.
After banning the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza for almost two month, Israel earlier this week announced some aid would be let in.
Palestinians in Gaza rely almost entirely on outside aid to survive because Israel's offensive has destroyed almost all the territory's food production capabilities.
The situation on the ground is hitting children and mothers the hardest.
Mai Namleh and her 18-month-old son are both malnourished and living in a tent.
Namleh tried to wean him off of breastmilk because she barely has any, but she had nothing else to give him
She gives him heavily watered-down formula to ration it, and sometimes offers him starch to quiet his hunger screams. "I try to pass it for milk to stop him screaming," she said of the formula.
In another tent, Nouf al-Arja said she paid a fortune for a hard-to-find kilogram of red lentils.
The family cooks it with a lot of water so it lasts, unsure what they will eat next.
The mother of four has lost 23 kilograms and struggles to focus, saying she constantly feels dizzy.
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