“Thousands more have been injured or we can’t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble … We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News network on Sunday.

“I have been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anaemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies … don’t even have the energy to cry.”

Russell added there were “very great bureaucratic challenges” moving trucks into Gaza for aid and assistance as famine stalks more than two million Palestinians since Israel’s “genocidal” war began.

Moreover, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished. The agency also warned that famine is looming in the besieged enclave facing relentless Israeli bombing for more than five months.

International criticism has mounted on Israel due to the death toll of the war, the starvation crisis in Gaza, and allegations of blocking aid deliveries into the enclave.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his threat of a ground assault on Rafah, the town bordering Egypt where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.

“No amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat against Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office.

“To do this, we will also operate in Rafah,” he added.

Since October 7, Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 31,600 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly two million of its residents.

The Israeli operation has also led to accusations of genocide, being probed at the UN’s International Court of Justice.

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, made the remarks on Saturday night as reports say the stalled Gaza truce talks are expected to restart in Qatar as soon as Sunday.

“Hamas’s recent offer for a ceasefire [in Gaza] is so realistic that the enemy cannot reject it,” he said.

“In its proposal, Hamas has provided specific details regarding the issue of captives and the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza.”

Hamdan also added that Hamas is still waiting for a response from Israel and its supporter in the bloody Gaza war, the United States.

The Zionist regime has not achieved any of its declared objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding the Israeli captives held in Gaza, he continued.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what blows his regime’s military has suffered.”

The Hamas official further stated that the resistance group has insisted on an end to the Israeli aggression against Gaza in all its contacts with mediators.

The upcoming Gaza truce talks would mark the first time both Israeli and Hamas leaders officials join the indirect negotiations since the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

According to Egyptian officials, Hamas’s new proposal includes a three-stage plan to end the war.

The first stage would be a six-week ceasefire that would see the release of 35 Israeli captives in exchange for 350 Palestinian abductees held in the regime’s jails.

In the second phase, the two sides would declare a permanent ceasefire and swap more prisoners.

In the third stage, Hamas would hand over the bodies it is holding in exchange for Israel lifting the inhumane blockade on Gaza and allowing the reconstruction process to start.

Israel waged its genocidal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,553 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,546 others.