Siwar Ashour was born into war and hunger and has known nothing else. She is now in real danger of dying without ever having known a moment of peace or contentment.

The six-month-old Palestinian girl, whose painfully emaciated body symbolised the deliberate starvation of Gaza when she appeared on the BBC this week, was only 2.5kg when she was born on 20 November last year.

From birth, Siwar had a problem with her oesophagus that has made it hard for her to drink breast milk and left her dependent on specialised formula, which is in critically short supply.

“When she was born, she was beautiful despite the weakness visible on her features,” she said. “But now she is unnaturally thin. Babies her age are supposed to weigh 6kg or more – not just 2-4kg.”