The Palestinian health minister said on Monday that 29 children and the elderly have died of hunger in Gaza in recent days and that thousands more are at risk, Reuters reported.
Food aid is expected to start arriving in Gaza today after Israel released the first trucks after an 11-week blockade, but Palestinian and aid officials say it is only a fraction of what is needed.
"In the last few days, we have lost 29 children," Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan told reporters, describing them as "starvation deaths." He later clarified that the total included both the elderly and children.
Asked to respond to earlier comments by the United Nations (UN) aid chief who told the BBC that 14.000 babies could die without help, he said: "The number of 14.000 is very realistic, perhaps even an underestimate."
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies in March, saying Hamas was seizing supplies for its fighters - a charge the group denies. Earlier this month, a global monitor said half a million people in the Gaza Strip were facing starvation, according to Reuters.
Abu Ramadan said that only seven or eight of Gaza's 36 hospitals are partially functioning and that more than 90 percent of medical supplies are now at zero due to the blockade.
"My information is that very few shipments went inside Gaza – 90-100 trucks in the southern and central zones," he said.
Asked if there were any medical supplies among them, he said: "As far as I know ... it's just flour for bakers."
Flour and supplies will start arriving.
Flour and food supplies will begin arriving today to some of the most vulnerable residents in the Gaza Strip, after Israel allowed more trucks carrying aid to enter, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports.
Israel said it allowed 100 trucks, also loaded with baby food and medical supplies, into Gaza on Wednesday, two days after announcing it was easing restrictions due to international pressure.
However, the UN said this was "not nearly enough to meet the enormous needs in Gaza", after 11 weeks of a blockade on humanitarian access.
Humanitarian organizations have warned of acute levels of hunger among more than two million Gazans, as well as a growing number of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition, amid significant shortages of basic foodstuffs and skyrocketing prices.
Before the operation, a senior official from the World Food Programme (WFP), Antoine Renard, told the BBC that the problems in collecting aid had arisen because the Israeli military had required trucks to take a route in Gaza that aid agencies considered dangerous. He said the route could expose them to attacks by desperate, hungry civilians and armed criminal gangs.
"At market prices in Gaza right now, each truckload of flour is worth about $400.000," Renar explained.
He added that the solution would be "hundreds of trucks a day" taking a safe route to the warehouse.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies in March, saying Hamas was taking shipments for its fighters.
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has denied Israel's accusations.
The UN has said that a quarter of Gaza's 2,3 million residents are at risk of starvation.
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