14,000 children at risk of death in Gaza within 48 hours, warns UN amid aid blockade

The United Nations has issued a dire warning that up to 14,000 infants in Gaza could die within 48 hours unless urgent humanitarian aid is allowed to enter the besieged enclave, as per reports.

After 11 weeks of complete blockade by Israel, only a minimal flow of aid has resumed – insufficient to meet the overwhelming needs of a population on the brink.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the situation as catastrophic, revealing that only five trucks carrying aid, including life-saving baby food were permitted into Gaza on Monday. 

He said that they run all sorts of risks trying to get that baby food through to those mothers who cannot feed their children right now because they’re malnourished in an interview with a UK-based media house.

The limited resumption of aid came after international pressure from key Israeli allies including the United States, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom. However, humanitarian officials stress that the trickle of relief is grossly inadequate.

“Not enough. Five trucks, nowhere near enough,” said Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), speaking from a warehouse in Amman, Jordan, where tons of aid remain stalled. She described the facility as stocked with enough food to feed 2,00,000 people for a month, all of it urgently needed inside Gaza.

“Everything around me is aid that is supposed to be in the Gaza Strip right now,” she said, underscoring the deep frustration of aid workers unable to access the people most in need. “We’ve done it before – when the ceasefire held, we reached every area of Gaza. We reached the elderly, the sick, the children. The system works, but only when access is granted.”

As supplies run dangerously low and Gaza’s distribution networks collapse, the UN’s warning highlights the imminent risk of mass child mortality. Without immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access, thousands of lives most of them infants hang in the balance.