GAZA: The main UN agency operating in the Palestinian enclave said that one in three children under age 2 in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished and famine is looming. 

“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza,” the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a social media post.

While some aid is being airdropped or delivered by sea, experts, NGOs and residents say it’s nowhere near enough to meet the needs of millions of Palestinians, Al Jazeera reports.

“The situation is so bad that no one can imagine it, and the ship, even if it helps, will be a drop in the ocean, because the entire region is in need of aid, and people are competing to take aid from the shore,” Zahr Saqr, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera.

“We keep waiting for aid. This is not a solution, whether by ship or by plane. We saw planes dropping aid and people fighting over it. There are some children who drowned in the sea for aid,” Wael Miqdad, a Khan Younis resident, said.

Aid agencies are warning nearly 600,000 people are on the brink of famine.

“The living situation is very bad. We cannot eat, or drink, and aid is very scarce. They told us there is aid in the south, but it is very scarce,” Iman Wadi, another displaced Palestinian, said.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans to appoint a new humanitarian aid coordinator for Gaza after the military’s “failure” to oversee aid deliveries there, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet) reports.