“What doctors and medical staff are telling us is more and more they are seeing the effects of starvation; they’re seeing newborn babies simply dying because they (are) too low birth weight,” said Dr Margaret Harris from the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

In response to the findings of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza published on Monday, UN human rights chief Volker Türk insisted that “hunger, starvation and famine” were the result of Israel’s “extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods”, mass population displacement and the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure.