Children have starved to death in the besieged Gaza Strip, where people are eating leaves and animal food in a desperate attempt to stay alive.

Life-saving aid to the enclave continues to be delayed by stalled ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Thousands of families are struggling to find food.

Ten children died at Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of Gaza, it was confirmed by the UN for the first time on Monday.

Yazan Al Kafarneh, 10, was filmed by local journalists at the hospital a few days before his death, looking emaciated and barely able to speak.

Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, later said a total of 15 children had already died from malnutrition and dehydration at the hospital.

Diala Abu Sultan is six months old and is displaying severe signs of malnutrition and skeletal fragility.

In recent weeks, her parents have been unable to find or afford milk so they have been giving Diala water which is likely contaminated.

“I cannot bear to see my child crying day and night due to extreme hunger and colic,” her mother Diana told The Telegraph on Monday.

“Her bones have become visible, and she refuses to eat anything.”

Doctors have told the family the infant needs vitamins, nutrients and prescription medication, but none of it can be found.

Much of the aid waiting to get to the Strip is dependent on a ceasefire being negotiated between Israel and Hamas.

However Israel is refusing to hold negotiations until the terrorist group reveals how many of the hostages it took in the Oct 7 attacks are still alive. Hamas claims it does not know the location and condition of all captives, thought to number over 100.

In the meantime aid trucks that do manage to get into Gaza have been looted by desperate people, leaving children like Diala empty-handed while Israel continues to bombard the region.

“I feel a heavy burden of guilt for bringing her into such a cruel world. What fault lies with my innocent little girl, suffering from starvation? All she needs is milk,” said Diana, who gave birth just before the start of the war.

Muhammad, the girl’s 40-year-old father, is a driver but he has not been able to get any work since the start of the war.

The couple, who have six children, soon ran out of provisions and money. With no food aid available, prices at the market are beyond what they can afford.

Like thousands of people in Gaza, they subsisted for weeks on animal food but that is now running out too.

“We’ve even turned to eating plant leaves to stave off hunger, but Diala, being so young, cannot digest such sustenance,” Muhammad said.

“All I beg from this world is milk to save my daughter’s life. The thought of losing her is unbearable. I cannot fathom losing my daughter, Diala, to hunger.”

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials found “children dying of starvation” in both Kamal Adwan and al Awda hospitals.

“Grim findings… severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed,” Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said on Monday after the organisation’s first visit to the north of Gaza since the start of the war.

He confirmed that “lack of food” resulted in the deaths of ten children at Kamal Adwan hospital.