<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Four-year old Razan Abu Zaher gave up her fight for life on Sunday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She died at a hospital in central </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/gaza" rel="" target="_blank" title="Gaza"><span>Gaza</span></a><span> from complications brought on by hunger and malnutrition, according to a medical source. Her skeletal body was laid out on a slab of stone.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>At least 76 children in Gaza have died of malnutrition since the conflict began in October 2023, as well as ten adults, the Palestinian health ministry says.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/indonesian-passenger-ferry-catches-fire-at-sea-killing-at-least-5/27582289-99a1-4333-8136-8305160ac344" rel="" target="_blank" title="Indonesian passenger ferry catches fire at sea, killing at least five people"><strong><span>Indonesian passenger ferry catches fire at sea, killing at least five people</span></strong></a><strong></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>According to the World Health Organisation, most of these occurred since </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/israel" rel="" target="_blank" title="Israeli"><span>Israeli</span></a><span> authorities imposed a blockade at the beginning of March.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Razan was one of at least four children to succumb in the last three days, the youngest just three months.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Over the past 24 hours, 18 deaths have been recorded due to famine in Gaza, the health ministry says, reflecting a deepening crisis in the territory.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/israel-hamas-conflict-razan-abu-zaher-aged-4-dies-of-hunger-in-gaza-after-food-supply-throttled/77d1016f-dd3b-4254-b38d-d8a7ad583368" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>CNN first met Razan a month ago. She was already weak with hunger and pitifully thin.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Her mother, Tahrir Abu Daher, said then that she had no money to buy milk, which was in any case rarely available.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Her health was very good before the war, but after the war, her condition began to deteriorate due to malnutrition. There is nothing to strengthen her."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/adhd-medication-shortage-families-struggling-prescriptions-australia/f06a3579-36ec-4df2-9c65-6c603cd8da98" rel="" target="_blank" title="'Ripped away': Medicine crisis pushing Aussie families to the brink"><strong><span>'Ripped away': Medicine crisis pushing Aussie families to the brink</span></strong></a><strong></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That was on June 23. Razan had already been in hospital for 12 days. She clung on to life for another 27 days.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Razan died amid growing starvation in Gaza, with the flow of humanitarian aid severely reduced since the beginning of March, when Israeli authorities banned convoys from entering Gaza.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That ban was partially lifted at the end of May, but aid agencies say the amounts reaching the territory are far too little to sustain the population.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Israel said it was halting shipments of aid into Gaza because Hamas was stealing and profiting from it - an allegation Hamas denies.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Israeli agencies also say the United Nations has not picked up aid ready to move into Gaza. The UN in turn has said that Israeli forces frequently deny permission to move aid within Gaza, and that much more is waiting to be allowed in.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the Gaza strip, the Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said in a statement that the IDF was "working to allow and facilitate the transfer" of humanitarian aid, including food.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/home-invasion-edmondson-park-sydney-trio-on-the-run/d169957b-6718-4b47-a1d8-3970fa762de7" rel="" target="_blank" title="Young boy assaulted in terrifying Sydney home invasion"><strong><span>Young boy assaulted in terrifying Sydney home invasion</span></strong></a><strong></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Since the beginning of the hostilities and up to this day, approximately 67,000 food trucks have entered the Gaza Strip, delivering around 1.5 million tons of food," COGAT said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Israel will continue to facilitate the entry of food" into Gaza, COGAT said, "while taking all possible measures to prevent the terrorist organisation Hamas from seizing the aid."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Gaza was heavily dependent on aid and commercial shipments of food before the conflict began in October 2023, and shortages of food, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities have only worsened since.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The scarcity of food since March has sent a rapidly growing number of people to already overwhelmed hospitals.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Gaza is witnessing the worst phase of famine, which has reached catastrophic levels amid unprecedented international silence," said Dr Khalil Al-Daqran, the spokesman for al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where Razan died.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Al-Daqran said the infants who were dying had been robbed of their childhood twice, "once by bombing and killing, and again by depriving them of milk and a piece of bread."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The health ministry said an "unprecedented number of starving citizens of all ages are arriving at emergency departments in severe states of exhaustion and fatigue."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Hundreds whose bodies have been severely weakened are now at risk of imminent death due to hunger and their bodies' inability to endure any longer," the ministry added.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – an NGO working in Gaza - reported over the weekend that one of its team in Gaza had said: "Our faces have changed and our bodies have wasted away. We no longer recognise each other from extreme emaciation, as if we are slowly fading away and dying."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Dr Suhaib Al-Hams, director of Kuwait field hospital in Khan Younis, told CNN that people arriving there were in "dire need of food before medicine, as their bodies have reached a point beyond endurance and are all at risk of death."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/queensland-plane-crash-oakey/9cf653a4-c84b-4c21-926c-ae00e4c949b8" rel="" target="_blank" title="Two men killed as light plane crashes in Queensland"><strong><span>Two men killed as light plane crashes in Queensland</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Today, the World Central Kitchen stopped sending meals for the medical staff, they used to send us only rice. Doctors are working 24 hours a day with no food, neither at home nor at the hospital. People are dying of hunger," Al-Hams said Sunday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>World Central Kitchen confirmed its Gaza teams had run out of ingredients to cook warm meals.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We served 80,000 meals yesterday (Saturday), emptying the last of our replenished stocks while aid trucks remain stuck at the border.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"This is the second time lack of access to aid has forced our kitchen operations to pause," it added.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In their desperation, thousands of people risk their lives every day to find something to eat. More than 70 people were reported to have been killed on Sunday in northern Gaza as they desperately sought food aid, according to the health ministry, which said they had been shot by Israeli troops.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Israel Defence Forces said troops in the area "fired warning shots in order to remove an immediate threat posed to them. The IDF is aware of the claim regarding casualties in the area, and the details of the incident are still being examined."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"An initial review suggests that the number of casualties reported does not align with the information held by the IDF," it added.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital where many of the casualties were taken, said that "a significant number of civilians, and even medical staff, are arriving in a state of fainting or collapse due to severe malnutrition."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Nearly 800 Palestinians were killed while trying to access aid in Gaza between late May and July 7, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>During that period, OHCHR recorded the killings of 798 people, 615 of whom were killed near sites of the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It added that 183 others were killed "on the routes of aid convoys" without giving details on who had been running those convoys.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Dozens more have been killed since, according to the health ministry, including more than 30 in southern Gaza on Saturday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Tom Fletcher, the UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, told the UN Security Council on Thursday that food was running out in Gaza. "Those seeking it risk being shot. People are dying trying to feed their families."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He said starvation rates among children had reached their highest levels in June, with more than 5800 girls and boys diagnosed as acutely malnourished.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday it was receiving "deeply troubling reports of malnourished children and adults being admitted to hospitals with little resources available to treat them properly."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>On Saturday, Sarmad Tamimy, a plastic surgeon volunteering with Medical Aid for Palestinians, told CNN: "Honestly, I feel the lucky ones get killed immediately because (of) the horrible horrors that they're going to face with their extensive injuries, with inadequate nutrition, inadequate medical supplies, infections, maggots, (and) hospital-acquired infections."</span></div></div>