Click to view full size

Mal­nu­tri­tion rates among chil­dren in the Gaza Strip have dou­bled since Is­rael sharply re­strict­ed the en­try of food in March, the U.N. said Tues­day. New Is­raeli strikes killed more than 90 Pales­tini­ans, in­clud­ing dozens of women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to health of­fi­cials.

Hunger has been ris­ing among Gaza’s more than 2 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans since Is­rael broke a cease­fire in March to re­sume the war and banned all food and oth­er sup­plies from en­ter­ing Gaza, say­ing it aimed to pres­sure Hamas to re­lease hostages. It slight­ly eased the block­ade in late May, al­low­ing in a trick­le of aid.

UN­R­WA, the main U.N. agency car­ing for Pales­tini­ans in Gaza, said it had screened near­ly 16,000 chil­dren un­der age 5 at its clin­ics in June and found 10.2% of them were acute­ly mal­nour­ished. By com­par­i­son, in March, 5.5% of the near­ly 15,000 chil­dren it screened were mal­nour­ished.