The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that more than 10,000 children in Gaza City urgently require treatment for acute malnutrition as Israel intensifies its ground offensive in the area.
“The forced and massive displacement of families from Gaza City is a deadly threat to the most vulnerable,” said Tess Ingram, UNICEF spokeswoman in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi zone, during a UN press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
She revealed that an estimated 26,000 children across the Gaza Strip now need malnutrition treatment, including 10,000 in Gaza City alone.
According to UNICEF data, more than one in eight children examined in the enclave in August were found to be acutely malnourished — the highest level ever recorded. In Gaza City, the rate was even higher, at one in five.
Ingram added that nutrition centres in Gaza City had been forced to shut down this week due to evacuation orders and intensified military operations.
The Israeli army has urged civilians to move southward to Al-Mawasi, promising food, tents, and medicine. However, humanitarian organisations note that Israel has repeatedly struck designated “humanitarian zones,” citing Hamas presence.
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children, battered and traumatised by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict, to flee one hellscape to end up in another,” Ingram said.
The UN estimates that about 40 per cent of Gaza City’s population — roughly one million people — has been displaced. Around 150,000 fled south between August 14 and mid-September, with many still trapped “inside and around” the city.
The war began in October 2023 after Hamas militants killed 1,219 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has since killed at least 64,964 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose figures the UN deems credible.
