The head of the children’s department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis has said the health crisis in southern Gaza has reached “a catastrophic level”, warning that the facility can no longer cope with the number of malnourished children seeking treatment, Al Jazeera reports.

In a post on the hospital’s Facebook page, Dr Ahmed al-Farra said the facility would need “ten hospitals the size of the Nasser Complex” to handle the increasing number of cases of children suffering from malnutrition.

There are currently 25 children hospitalised in critical condition, including those lying on the floor due to a lack of beds, he said. Some children, al-Farra added, arrive at the hospital after losing their lives outside its gates “due to lack of milk and treatment”.

One in four children in Gaza is already suffering from malnutrition, and between 60,000 and 75,000 children in southern Gaza alone are at risk, he continued, calling the figures “horrifying and unprecedented”.

“The malnutrition clinic in Nasser, which can only operate two days a week, receives more than 120 cases in a few hours, ten times the previous rates,” he said.