New Delhi: “With children starting … to die from starvation, that should be an alarm like no other,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, told reporters in Geneva.The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported that 15 children succumbed to starvation in a single hospital. The UN has grimly acknowledged the looming inevitability of famine in the territory, which has been under assault since October 7.Last weekend, the WHO revealed distressing scenes of starving children after gaining access to two northern hospitals for the first time since October. At Kamal Adwan hospital, the only pediatric facility in northern Gaza, doctors reported that at least 10 children had died due to starvation, according to Ahmed Dahir, who headed the mission.The health ministry later updated the number of child deaths at the hospital to 15, with an additional six acutely malnourished infants in critical condition. Laerke pleaded for immediate action, urging the international community to “flood Gaza with aid” to alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis.Before the latest escalation in Gaza, around 500 trucks a day entered Gaza, but the daily tally in recent months and days has barely risen above 133, Laerke explained.A UN assessment in January revealed alarming levels of malnutrition among children in Gaza.Malnutrition – which leads to irreparable wasting in young children – was never the deadly threat in Gaza that it is now, as the enclave was largely self-sufficient in fish and other food production, WHO’s Dr. Rik Peeperkorn said.“Before the recent months’ hostilities, wasting in the Gaza Strip was rare with just 0.8% of children under five years of age acutely malnourished,” he explained. “The (current) rate of 15.6% of wasting among children under two in northern Gaza suggests a serious and rapid decline. Such a decline in a population’s nutritional status in three months is unprecedented globally,” he said.The WHO official noted with concern that 90% of children under two years old and 95% of pregnant and breastfeeding women “face severe food poverty – meaning they have consumed two or less food groups in the previous day – and the food they do have access to is of the lowest nutritional value”.