The entire Gaza Strip now has just 12 partially functioning hospitals where cases of severe acute malnutrition among newborns in northern governorates are likely already “overwhelming” medical teams, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Backing repeated international calls for a ceasefire to allow more desperately needed aid into the enclave, WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris warned that many “horrifically” underweight infants “are now dying”, after nearly six months of conflict. 

Hospitals are reporting deaths of babies “in the tens, in the twenties”, but many more families are probably “suffering in silence” because they can’t get to a doctor, she told UN News’s Daniel Johnson in Geneva.