UNITED NATIONS, United States — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the "accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions" in Gaza after more than 21 months of Israel's war with Hamas.

 

"The last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," his spokesman said in a statement. The United Nations chief "deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition."

 

As malnutrition surges in war-torn Gaza, tens of thousands of children and women require urgent treatment, according to the UN, while aid enters the blockaded Palestinian territory at a trickle.

 

Gaza's civil defence agency told AFP it has noted a rising number of infant deaths caused by "severe hunger and malnutrition", reporting at least three such deaths in the past week.

 

"These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula and the absence of basic healthcare," civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

 

Ziad Musleh, a 45-year-old father displaced from Gaza's north to the central city of Nuseirat, told AFP: "We are dying, our children are dying and we can't do anything to stop it."

 

"Our children cry and scream for food. They go to sleep in pain, in hunger, with empty stomachs. There is absolutely no food.

 

"And if by chance a small amount appears in the market, the prices are outrageous -- no one can afford it."

 

At a food distribution site in a UN-school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat on Sunday, children entertained themselves by banging on their plates as they waited for their turn.

 

Several of them had faces stretched thin by hunger, an AFP journalist reported.

 

Umm Sameh Abu Zeina, whose cheekbones protruded from her thin face as she waited for food in Nuseirat, said she had lost 35 kilograms.

 

"We do not eat enough. I don't eat, I leave the food I receive for my daughter," she said, adding that she had a range of health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes.

 

Depleted stocks

 

Gazans as well as the UN and aid organisations frequently complain that depleted stocks have sent prices skyrocketing for what little food is available in the markets.

 

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned in early July that the price of flour for bread was 3,000 times more expensive than before the war began more than 21 months ago.

 

WFP director Carl Skau, who visited Gaza City in early July, described the situation as "the worst I've ever seen".

 

"A father I met had lost 25 kilograms in the past two months. People are starving, while we have food just across the border," he said in a statement.

 

After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.

 

As stocks accumulated during the ceasefire gradually depleted, the Palestinian territory experienced the worst shortages since the start of the war.

 

"Our kitchens are empty; they are now serving hot water with a bit of pasta floating in it," said Skau.

 

'I'm always hungry'

 

The effects of malnutrition on children and pregnant women can be particularly dire.

 

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said last week that its teams are seeing the highest number of malnutrition cases ever recorded by its teams in Gaza.

 

"Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and poor water and sanitation levels, many babies are being born prematurely," said Joanne Perry, an MSF doctor in Gaza.

 

"Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator."

 

Amina Wafi, a 10-year-old girl from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, said she thinks of food constantly.

 

"I'm always hungry. I always tell my father, 'I want food', and he promises he'll bring me something but there is none, and he simply can't," she told AFP.

 

MSF said that patients at its Gaza clinics do not heal properly from their wounds due to protein deficiency, and that the lack of food causes infections to last longer than they would in healthy individuals.

 

Israel's offensive has killed at least 58,895 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza's health ministry. The UN considers these figures to be reliable.