Staff at a supported nutrition centre in Gaza City, where parents take children to be screened and treated for malnutrition, are facing an overwhelming demand on their services, says the UN agency for children (Unicef).

“It’s clear on the ground that famine is absolutely ravaging Gaza City,” Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram told Al Jazeera during a visit to the centre, adding she had encountered “so many” parents who were “in complete despair because they have run out of options”.

Children at the centre were screened for malnutrition by measuring their upper arms, with those on the edge of malnutrition given fortified, high-energy biscuits as a preventive treatment, and malnourished children given ready-to-use therapeutic food.

“It’s basically a medicine that’s administered to children like a paste. They take it over a series of weeks to get better,” said Ingram. “But we just don’t have enough, the demand is really high, and supplies are low.”