The main United Nations aid agency operating in Gaza said on Saturday that acute malnutrition is rising more quickly in the north of the enclave, as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new ceasefire talks.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said one-third of children under the age of two in northern Gaza are now acutely malnourished amid growing pressure on Israel over looming famine in the embattled enclave.
Israel said on Friday it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after its enemy, Hamas, presented a new proposal for a ceasefire with an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
The delegation will be led by the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, a source familiar with the talks said, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to convene the security cabinet to discuss the proposal before the talks start.
Efforts to secure a ceasefire before Islam's holy month of Ramadan, which started on Sunday, repeatedly failed. Israel says it plans to launch a new offensive in Rafah, the last relatively safe city in Gaza after five months of war.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is starting a two-day visit to the region, voiced concern about an assault on Rafah, in southern Gaza, saying there was a danger it would result "in many terrible civilian casualties."
On Friday, Netanyahu's office said he had approved an attack plan on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are sheltering, and that the civilian population would be evacuated. It gave no time frame, and there was no immediate evidence of extra preparations on the ground.
The conflict began on Oct. 7, when Hamas sent fighters into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 252 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's ground and air campaign has killed more than 31,500 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The assault has also devastated the enclave's built environment, forcing nearly all of the inhabitants from their homes, leaving much of the territory in rubble and triggering a massive hunger crisis that has alarmed even Israel's allies.
"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza," UNRWA said in a social media post. Hospitals in Gaza have reported some children dying of malnutrition and dehydration.
Western countries have called on Israel to do more to allow in aid, with the UN saying it faced "overwhelming obstacles," including crossing closures, onerous vetting, restrictions on movement and unrest inside Gaza.
Israel says it puts no limit on humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and blames slow aid delivery on incapacity or inefficiency among UN agencies.
Air and sea relief deliveries into Gaza have started.
A first delivery into Gaza by the World Central Kitchen charity, pioneering a new sea route via Cyprus, arrived on Friday and was off-loaded, the charity said, with another ship ready. The United States and Jordan said they carried out an air drop on Saturday.
On Saturday, a second cargo of food aid was ready to depart by sea from Cyprus on Saturday, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said, while the U.S. and Jordan said they carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid.
In a CNN interview, Queen Rania of Jordan called the airdrops "literally just drops in the ocean of unmet needs" and accused Israel of "cutting off everything that is required to sustain a human life: food, fuel, medicine, water."
