KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (Reuters) -On the pink walls of Nasser hospital’s child malnutrition ward, cartoon drawings show children running, smiling, and playing with flowers and balloons.

Beneath the pictures, a handful of Gazan mothers watch over their babies who lie still and largely silent, mostly too exhausted by severe hunger to cry.

The quiet is common in places treating the most acutely malnourished, doctors told Reuters, a sign of bodies shutting down.

"She is always lethargic, lying down, like this… you do not find her responsive," said Zeina Radwan, mother of 10-month-old Maria Suhaib Radwan. She has not been able to find milk or enough food for her baby, and cannot breastfeed as she herself is underfed, surviving on one meal a day.

"My children and I cannot live without nutrition."

Over the last week, Reuters journalists spent five days in Nasser Medical Complex, one of only four centres left in Gaza able to treat the most dangerously hungry children.

Gaza's food stocks have been running out since Israel, at war with Palestinian militant group Hamas since October 2023, cut off all supplies to the territory in March. That blockade was lifted in May butwith restrictionsthat Israel says are needed to prevent aid being diverted to militant groups.

As stocks ran out, the situation escalated in June and July, with the World Health Organization warning of mass starvation and images of emaciated........

© Al Monitor