CAIRO, August 25. /TASS/. At least 11 people, including two children, have succumbed to hunger in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, Gaza's Health Ministry wrote on its Telegram channel on Monday.

The total number of Gaza residents who have recently perished from malnutrition has risen to 300, including 117 minors, the ministry specified.

On August 21, the enclave’s press service reported that over the past three and a half weeks only around 2,000 humanitarian trucks entered 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 allowed to enter the enclave.

On August 22, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-supported mechanism for monitoring food security, officially designated the food security situation in the northern Gaza region as famine for the first time.

That same day, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel was not "starving" Gaza, but rather "preventing famine" in the enclave. The prime minister’s office pointed out that the radical Palestinian movement Hamas "systematically steals aid to finance its war machine," adding that while there were temporary shortages, Israel overcame them with airdrops, maritime deliveries, and safe transport routes.