Chaos and hunger in Gaza as more children die of malnutrition every day

Aid agencies said children in Gaza are dying every single day because they aren't able to get access to food and drinking water, Correspondent Emma Murphy reports from Tel Aviv

What is unfolding in Gaza shouldn’t be a surprise.

Five months ago, Israel’s Defence Minister made very clear what the plan was.

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Yoav Gallant announced.

“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Given the scenes in Gaza now, it seems his plans are coming together exactly as he suggested.

More than 30,000 are dead, including 11,000 children and now there is another threat.

Hunger, which has stalked Gaza for months, has now started to ravage the population.

Malnutrition is rampant in the North, with children dying due to a lack of food.

Even in the South, where some sustenance is available - albeit at hugely inflated prices -malnutrition is starting to impact the youngest and most vulnerable.

Aid agencies describe what is unfolding in Gaza, as a man-made tragedy -predictable and preventable.

Last weeks’ loss of life around the aid convoy, where one hundred died trying to find food to survive, seems for now at least, to have shifted the narrative. Not just about why Israeli forces fired close to the convoy, but why there was such desperation to access the tiny bit of aid that had made it though.

The pressure coming to bear for a six week ceasefire is in large part due to what happened there. In death, those who perished there highlighted how little they had to live on before they were shot or crushed.

UNICEF's Chief of Communication Jonathan Crickx told ITV News the situation for children in Gaza is 'absolutely dramatic'

Foreign Secretary David Cameron described the scenes as "horrific", insisting they should be never be repeated.

Aid to Gaza has been one of his focuses since this war began. Before Christmas I travelled with him to the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza where we saw truck after truck lined up waiting for days for Israeli permission to cross.

We heard how most got turned around, their cargo rejected on “security grounds” in a process that seemed arbitrary at best.

Speaking to aid workers, most who have seen some of the most dreadful crises of the last years, it was clear they viewed what was happening as the worst they had witnessed. Speaking to them now it’s clear the situation is much more grave.

Before the war, besieged as it was, Gaza needed around 600 trucks a day to function, now less than one hundred are going in and there is no way anyone inside can provide for themselves.

There is now an international clamour for a ceasefire but between that and those who are suffering is an elected president focused on his political survival and an elected militant group focused on its own survival.

In the middle, the hungry, the dying and the displaced whose survival becomes more precarious with every day this war goes on.

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