A director of Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday that 20 people in Gaza died from starvation in the previous 48 hours, in what he described as an “unprecedented” toll.

Within the past 24 hours, a six-week-old infant and three other children died of starvation in Gaza, unnamed local health officials also said, noting that malnutrition and starvation were now killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war.

The ministry director, Munir Al-Barash, told the Al Jazeera outlet that “the figure of 20 deaths in two days is unprecedented.”

“A total of 88 people have died from hunger in Gaza [since the start of the war] so far, including 78 children,” he added.

The figures cannot be independently verified, and Israel has accused Hamas of diverting aid to itself while depriving the Gazan civilian population of vital supplies.

“Infants under one year of age suffer from a lack of milk, which leads to a significant decrease in their weight and a decrease in their immunity that makes them vulnerable to diseases,” said Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital.

AFP and several other news outlets published graphic pictures of Palestinian youth Abdul Jawad al-Ghalban, 14, who AFP said died of starvation, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The Times of Israel reached out to COGAT, the Defense Ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, for a response to the claims.

Israel has repeatedly dismissed reports of widespread starvation in the Strip, saying it is permitting humanitarian aid, including food, to enter.

COGAT on Monday said there was “no ban or restriction on the entry of baby formula or baby food into Gaza.” It said that “over 2,000 tons of baby food and infant formula were delivered into Gaza,” without specifying the time frame.

“We urge international organizations to continue coordinating with us to ensure the entry of baby food and formula without delay. Our commitment remains firm: to support humanitarian aid for civilians — not for Hamas,” COGAT wrote on X.

Meanwhile, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion.

“No one is spared: Caretakers in Gaza are also in need of care. Doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarians are hungry,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.

In a post on X, UNRWA said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed “the entire population for over three months.”

“The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped,” it wrote. “Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale.”

“Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can’t provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,” said Khalil al-Deqran, a spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry.

Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anemia, he said.

On Tuesday, men and boys lugged sacks of flour past destroyed buildings and tarpaulins in Gaza City, grabbing what food they could from aid warehouses.

“We haven’t eaten for five days,” said Mohammed Jundia. “Famine is killing people.”

The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to access food in Gaza since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started aid distribution operations. Israel has admitted to firing shots toward crowds of Palestinians approaching troops, but has claimed casualty figures are inflated, without presenting alternative tolls.

“As of July 21, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys,” UN human rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan told AFP, stating the victims had been “killed by the Israeli military.”

The GHF system, which has been delivering aid in Gaza over the past two months under a new mechanism aimed at diverting Hamas theft, has been plagued with problems.

In addition to near-daily shootings, it has forced Palestinians to walk long distances while crossing IDF lines in order to pick up aid. GHF has also not been vetting the thousands of aid recipients picking up boxes of food, due to the utterly chaotic situation at distribution sites, so there is no way to confirm the humanitarian assistance is reaching its intended recipients. Hamas has come out strongly against GHF, warning civilians not to cooperate with the organization.

On Monday, over two dozen Western countries called for Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza and criticized what they described as “inhumane killing” of Palestinians, saying it was “horrifying” that civilians were being killed while seeking aid.

The Foreign Ministry called the statement “disconnected from reality” and said it would send the wrong message to Hamas.

Separately, the European Union’s top diplomat said Tuesday that “all options remain on the table if Israel doesn’t deliver on its pledges” to facilitate humanitarian aid in Gaza

“The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote in a post on X, adding that she spoke with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar “to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF must stop killing people at distribution points.”

Earlier this month, Kallas said Israel had agreed to expand humanitarian access to Gaza, including increasing the number of aid trucks, crossing points and routes to distribution hubs.

‘You experience starvation’

Speaking at a Jerusalem press conference Tuesday after last week’s visit to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said humanitarian aid for Gaza is a “matter of life and death.”

“Refusing it is not a delay, but a sentence,” he said. “Every hour without food, water, medicine and shelter causes deep harm.”

Three Gazan Christians were killed last week when an Israeli tank shell hit the Strip’s only Catholic church, prompting Pope Leo XIV to condemn the “barbarity” of the war.

“We witnessed both profound grief and unyielding hope,” said Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III, who visited the church with Pizzaballa. “Silence in the face of suffering is a betrayal of conscience.”

Pizzaballa called the situation “morally unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

“It is time to end this nonsense, end the war, and put the common good of people as the top priority,” he said.

The cardinal called for the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza who were abducted during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that also killed 1,200 people in Israel and started the war.

Earlier, the journalists’ union at the AFP news agency warned that their colleagues in the Strip were at serious risk of starvation.

The Journalists Association for Agency France Presse (AFP) said in a statement that its colleagues reporting in the Gaza Strip are at serious risk of starvation, and that “without intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die.”

According to the statement, the news agency’s journalists in Gaza have warned recently that they no longer have enough strength to report, with one photographer in the enclave saying in a post on Facebook on Saturday: “My body is thin and I can no longer work.”

The photographer, identified as Bashar, 30, has been “moving from one refugee camp to another as Israeli bombardments dictate,” the union says in a French-language statement. “For over a year, he has lived in complete destitution and works at enormous risk to his life.”

The union added that “we risk learning of their deaths at any moment, and this is unbearable for us.”

“We refuse to see them die,” it added.

Responding to the statement, AFP’s management said it “shares the anguish” expressed by the union, and that it has been “helplessly witnessing the dramatic deterioration of their living conditions.”

The agency said it is now working to evacuate its remaining freelance journalists and their families from Gaza, “despite the extreme difficulty of leaving a territory subject to a strict blockade.”