Patients suffering from malnutrition continue to increase, while healthcare staff are finding it increasingly difficult to find food to survive themselves, reports the aid organization in a dispatch.
At the clinic in Gaza City in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the number of patients admitted for malnutrition has quadrupled since May 18, while the number of children under five suffering from acute malnutrition has tripled in the past two weeks.
"Unfathomable"
"What we are witnessing is unfathomable; an entire population is being deliberately cut off from food and water, while Israeli forces are carrying out daily massacres as people do what they can to get food scraps at distribution points", says Amande Bazerolle of MSF in a statement.
According to the Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza, at least 25 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes and shootings since Saturday night. Several of them are reported to have been killed in connection with the distribution of emergency aid by the heavily criticized Israeli-American organization GHF, which took over responsibility for distribution in Gaza on May 26, after more than two months of Israeli total blockade.
On Friday, the military announced that it will allow food to be dropped by plane over Gaza.
The office of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Saturday that the country plans to send emergency aid from the air and evacuate children in need of medical treatment, reports AFP.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, is however very critical and emphasizes that emergency aid efforts from the air will not stop the starvation in Gaza.
"They are expensive, ineffective and can even kill starving civilians. It's a distraction and smokescreen", writes Unrwa's chief Philippe Lazzarini on X.
Accuses Hamas
Over two million Palestinians are facing starvation due to the Israeli blockade.
Israel claims that humanitarian aid is being let into Gaza and has accused Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food distributions to sell them at inflated prices or shooting at people waiting for aid.
However, Israel's military has not been able to find any evidence that Hamas routinely steals aid from the UN and other international organizations, according to several sources for The New York Times. This confirms earlier reports from the US aid agency USAID, with the same conclusion.
