The UN warns that up to 14,000 babies in Gaza could die if they do not receive food in the next 48 hours.

BarcelonaThe two and a half months of blocking all humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip have created such a critical situation that the United Nations warns that thousands of children could die if they do not receive food in the coming hours. Israel cut off aid for civilians on March 2 And since then, the already critical situation has worsened, and hunger has spread, as all international organizations with a presence in the Palestinian enclave say they have run out of warehouse supplies.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke announced that Israel authorized the entry of 100 trucks loaded with food for children this Tuesday. "The next step is to collect them, and then they will be distributed through the existing system, which has proven effective," he said at a press conference in Geneva. Before the war began in October 2023, 500 trucks with humanitarian aid entered Gaza every day, so this figure is still a long way off.

The first trucks with humanitarian aid entered this Monday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would allow access to a "basic" amount. He himself admitted that he did so under international pressure: "We were approaching a red line where international support for Israel was damaged by news of famine in the Strip."

Laerke clarified that nine trucks with humanitarian aid were initially approved for access, but only five actually entered the Palestinian enclave and their cargo has not yet been distributed. He explained that four trucks were chartered by the World Food Programme and one by UNICEF, and that they were carrying only children's nutrition products, supplements, and baby food.

"It's a drop in the ocean," summarized Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in an interview with the BBC. He warned that if the aid does not reach the communities in the next 48 hours, up to 14,000 babies could die. Fletcher said the UN arrived at this estimate because it has "powerful teams on the ground, although many have died," and called it an "absolutely chilling" figure. Therefore, he stressed, "the Gaza Strip must be flooded with humanitarian aid."

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that if restrictions continue, malnutrition rates in Gaza will grow "exponentially." "I have data up to the end of April, and it shows that malnutrition is increasing. And the concern is that if the current food shortage continues, it will increase exponentially and then be beyond our control," warned Akihiro Seita, UNRWA's health director, on Tuesday.

"There are two million people going hungry," warned the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Monday during the opening of the organization's annual general assembly. He lamented that there are 160,000 tons of food "blocked at the border, just minutes away (from Gaza)." He assured that the WHO and other UN agencies are prepared to deliver aid to the Palestinians when they are allowed to do so.

More than 80 dead in the last few hours

For the past week, Israel has intensified its bombing campaign as part of a new ground offensive with which it plans to seize more territory in the Gaza Strip. On Monday, the Israeli armyordered the evacuation of Khan Yunis in the south, the enclave's second-largest city. And this Tuesday, at least 87 dead and nearly 300 wounded were reported since midnight, according to medical sources in Gaza. The total number of deaths since Israel began the war on Gaza in October 2023 now exceeds 53,500, the majority of whom were children and women.