One in 10 children screened in clinics run by the United Nations refugee agency in Gaza (UNRWA) since 2024 has been malnourished, the agency says, according to Reuters.

“Our health teams are confirming that malnutrition rates are increasing in Gaza, especially since the siege was tightened more than four months ago on the second of March,” UNRWA’s Director of Communications Juliette Touma told reporters in Geneva via a video link from Amman, Jordan.

“One nurse that we spoke to told us that in the past, he only saw these cases of malnutrition in textbooks and documentaries,” Touma said.

“Medicine, nutrition supplies, hygiene material, fuel are all rapidly running out,” Touma said.

Since January 2024, UNRWA said it had screened more than 240,000 boys and girls under the age of five in its clinics, adding that before the conflict, acute malnutrition was rarely seen in the Gaza Strip.