Thousands of babies in Gaza could die within 48 hours without aid, UN official warns

Up to 14,000 infants' lives at risk if supplies do not reach them

Hundreds of internally displaced Palestinians gather outside a charity kitchen in Gaza city to receive food rations on Sunday. EPA

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The UN's leading humanitarian affairs official has warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours if supplies do not reach them, after Israel allowed five aid lorries in on Monday.

“I want to save as many of these 14,000 babies as we can in the next 48 hours,” the UN's under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, told the BBC.

He said the five lorries of aid that had been allowed in are a “drop in the ocean”.

The lorries, carrying “baby food and nutrition”, are just on the other side of the border inside Gaza and have not yet reached any communities, Mr Fletcher said.

He said he hoped to get 100 lorries into the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday, adding that “we need to flood the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid”.

“It'll be tough,” he said, claiming that they are “impeded” at every point. “But we'll load those up with baby food and our people will run those risks.”

Mr Fletcher welcomed a statement by Britain, France and Canada on Monday that condemned Israel for its handling of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He said they were “robust words” but that the “real test” is whether the UN can get more aid in.

Israeli military vehicles at Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. AFP

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination for Humanitarian Affairs said the UN has received permission to send “around 100" lorries into Gaza.

“We have requested and received approval of more lorries to enter today, many more than were approved yesterday,” Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva.

“We expect, of course, with that approval, many of them, hopefully all of them, to cross today to a point where they can be picked up and get further into the Gaza Strip for distribution.”

The five aid lorries entered the territory via the Karam Abu Salem crossing on Monday, according to COGAT, the Israeli defence body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza.

Mr Fletcher on Monday called it a “welcome development” but described the lorries as a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”. Food security experts last week warned of famine in Gaza.

During a ceasefire that Israel ended in March, about 600 aid lorries a day entered Gaza.

Over the weekend Israel launched a wave of air and ground operations in the enclave, with the army ordering residents to leave its second-largest city, Khan Younis.

Israel says it is pressuring Hamas to release the remaining hostages abducted in the October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war. Hamas has said it will only release them in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Monday that Israel plans on “taking control of all of Gaza”. He has said Israel will encourage voluntary emigration of much of Gaza's population – something that Palestinians have rejected.