An alarming lack of food, surging malnutrition and the rampant spread of disease could spark an explosion in child deaths in Gaza, the United Nations has warned according to AFP.

Twenty weeks into Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, UN agencies warned that food and safe water had become “incredibly scarce” in the Palestinian territory, adding that virtually all young children had infectious illnesses.

“The Gaza Strip is poised to witness an explosion in preventable child deaths which would compound the already unbearable level of child deaths in Gaza,” said Ted Chaiban, deputy head of humanitarian action at the UN children’s agency Unicef.

“Hunger and disease are a deadly combination,” World Health Organisation emergencies director Mike Ryan said in a statement.

“Hungry, weakened and deeply traumatised children are more likely to get sick, and children who are sick, especially with diarrhoea, cannot absorb nutrients well,” he said.

“It’s dangerous and tragic, and happening before our eyes,” he said.

The UN assessment indicated that more than 15pc of children under the age of two in northern Gaza — one in six — were acutely malnourished, while three per cent were suffering from life-threatening severe wasting.

“As the data were collected in January, the situation is likely to be even graver today,” the UN agencies warned.

In southern Gaza, five per cent of children under two were acutely malnourished, according to the assessment.

Before the war, only 0.8 per cent of children under five in Gaza were considered acutely malnourished, the UN agencies pointed out.

“Such a decline in a population’s nutritional status in three months is unprecedented globally,” they said.