GAZA CITY—Umm Issa Abu Daf sat on the floor of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City holding her feverish infant son, Adham. All around her, mothers sat on chairs or on thin mattresses in the hallways, trying to tend to their sick children, many of whom were visibly malnourished or suffering from skin conditions covering their faces and bodies.

“The circumstances are difficult, but I have no choice. There’s nowhere else but this hospital to get him his treatment,” Umm Issa told Drop Site. Al-Rantisi is the only pediatric hospital in Gaza still functioning as other medical facilities have come under attack by the Israeli military and forced to shut down. Yet children and babies are unable to get proper treatment at Al-Rantisi due to massive overcrowding, severe shortages of medical supplies, and a widening famine as a result of the Israeli blockade.

“We’re also worried about the germs and microbes here as kids are very sensitive. They easily get fevers and get sick. But all praise be to God, what else can we do? I’m supposed to be on a hospital bed, and my child should be in a safe, clean place, getting proper treatment. But here I am, on the floor, with no place to sit,” Umm Issa said. “The children are deprived of everything. No diapers, no formula, no proper treatment. Even food, if I want to feed them anything, there’s nothing. I can barely manage.”

Children are particularly vulnerable to Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza, which reached a tipping point this summer with Palestinians dying of hunger every day. A total of 361 Palestinians have died of hunger since the start of the war, 130 of them children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. At least 185 of those starvation deaths have come in August alone. Some 43,000 children under five are now suffering from malnutrition, according to the health ministry, as Israel has severely restricted the amount of food and aid allowed into the enclave.