GENEVA, August 22. /TASS/. Even common and usually mild illnesses are leading to people's deaths in the Gaza Strip due to acute food shortages, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"This man-made, widespread malnutrition means that even common and usually mild diseases like diarrhea are becoming fatal, especially for children," he wrote on his X social media page.

Therefore, the WHO chief called on Israel to immediately stop blocking the supply of food, medicine, and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave.

Earlier on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-supported mechanism for monitoring food security, officially classified the food security situation in the northern Gaza region as famine for the first time.

On August 21, the enclave's press service reported that over the past three and a half weeks only around 2,000 humanitarian trucks have arrived in the Gaza Strip, or less than 15% of the volume required by the local population. According to the press service, over the past 25 days, at least 15,000 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were expected in Gaza, and only 2,187 trucks were permitted to enter the enclave.