https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-27/hundreds-killed-in-gaza-amid-israel-iran-war/105466200n the wards of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, two-year-old Mayar Al-Arja stares into the distance.
Her mother watches on, fearful the war is slowly killing her daughter, with no salvation in sight.
"She doesn't walk, play, smile, or speak; she does nothing at all," Asmaa Faif Al-Arja told the ABC.
"This is the third time I've had to bring her to the hospital — each time, I leave hoping she'll get better, only to return again.
"She continues to lose weight and is unable to gain any back."
Mayar is only about half the weight a girl her age should be, tipping the scales at just over 6 kilograms.
"She has a severe protein deficiency, her hair is falling out, her skin is peeling, and she suffers from constant diarrhoea," Asmaa said.
"There's no access to the protein-rich food she so desperately needs.
"She doesn't need complex treatment; she just needs to eat — all she requires is access to special nutritious food, that's all."
'The local market is now a black market'
But such items are in desperately short supply in Gaza, with Israeli restrictions on the number of aid deliveries entering Gaza.
About 70 trucks a day have crossed into the war-ravaged strip since Monday.
The Israeli agency that coordinates services in Gaza, COGAT, said 240 tonnes of baby food had arrived earlier this week to be distributed by the United Nation's children's agency UNICEF.
But doctors have warned months of prolonged shortages mean those deliveries are yet to make much of an impact, and the situation has been left to develop into a full-blown crisis.
"The cases of malnutrition, [children] who have died due to malnutrition, they are increasing day by day," Ahmad Al-Farra from Nasser Hospital's paediatrics and maternity department told the ABC.
"The last statistic is talking about 62 cases expired or died due to malnutrition, and the number of malnourishing cases increasing month by month nearly 150 per cent."
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