This is Mohamed Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a one-and-a-half-year-old baby who, like other children, has become one of the most heartbreaking images of the famine affecting the inhabitants of Gaza amid what is being denounced as an Israeli blockade.

The little boy was photographed with his mother by photographer Ahmed al-Arini on July 21 in a tent set up in the Strip, where even the most basic elements for Gazans' subsistence are scarce.

“He now weighs 6 kilos, whereas before he weighed 9. He used to eat and drink normally, but because of the food shortage and the current situation, he is suffering from severe malnutrition,” she laments while holding her son.

Hedaya explains that due to the lack of food, Mohamed “cannot sit or stand like any other child” and has developed “curved back” syndrome, as well as a dorsal protuberance.

“I have no means. My husband was killed in the war and I have no one to provide for him except God. I cannot feed him because I am alone. I work hard, but I cannot give him even a little baby formula. I am exhausted,” she says.

Reporter Ahmed al-Arini told the BBC’s Newshour program about the impact it had on He captured the image of Hedaya and his wife that has gone around the world.

“I had to pause after each take to catch my breath and continue,” he says.

The United Nations (UN) said on Thursday that it has 6,000 truckloads of humanitarian aid waiting to enter Gaza and warned that the famine in the enclave “has never been so bad.”

Israel says it has allowed enough aid into Gaza, while blaming the UN for not distributing it in a timely manner. He also claims that the malnutrition cases are Hamas's responsibility.

Benjamin Netanyahu's government says it will allow foreign countries to airlift aid to Gaza in the coming days.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), meanwhile, says its teams are seeing "catastrophic levels of malnutrition."

A diaper bag

"I took this photo of baby Mohamed when he was with his mother. They were displaced from their home in northern Gaza," Ahmed says.

"They were in a completely empty tent, except for a small oven. It really looked like a tomb. And I took it because I wanted to show the world the extreme hunger that babies and children in the Gaza Strip are suffering from.”

The photographer explains that little Mohamed “has received no milk, formula, or vitamins.”

“And if you look at the photo closely, you’ll see that he’s wearing a plastic bag instead of a diaper. Due to the lack of humanitarian aid and medicine, the prices have skyrocketed, they’ve gone through the roof, so no one in Gaza can afford them,” he says.

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that 122 Palestinians have already died from malnutrition, at least 83 of whom are children.

Ahmed, like other photojournalists who have portrayed the situation in Gaza in recent weeks, highlights how complex it has become to record such horror: "Seeing how babies are suffering from extreme hunger, and how emaciated they are, of course affects me; I am a human being."

That's why, says Ahmed, when he found Mohamed and Hedaya, it took him a long time to take the photographs.

Unfortunately, this is not the only baby he has found in these conditions.

"I have seen several cases like this. The other day I took some photos of a 17-year-old boy who lost 25 kilos in just one month. People can't find food in the Gaza Strip; there is extreme hunger, if not famine, and people fight over a little bit of help, risking their lives to get something.”

Ahmed himself is also hungry.

“I haven’t had a single bite of food since this morning,” he told the BBC on Thursday. “I’m talking to you right now and I’m so hungry. It’s almost impossible to get food.”

“My nieces and nephews have been crying since yesterday, asking their father for a piece of bread. That’s all they need, and there’s not enough for everyone,” he says.

At times, the photographer says, he finds it difficult to do his work.

“I walk to take my photos, and at the same time, while I’m doing it, I get dizzy, I lose my balance because I'm hungry, we're exhausted. I'm also thirsty, so we're all suffering.

I've seen many colleagues collapse from extreme hunger and thirst.”

For his job, Ahmed says he used to use an app to receive his payments, “but now, because the situation is so difficult, they charge a 40% commission, so almost half of my salary is already lost before I can buy or afford anything.”

The journalist explains that, amid the blockade and shortages of basic supplies, products are traded on a black market that almost no one can access.

“The little aid that is entering Gaza is not enough for anyone, and all that arrives are sacks of flour, when water is also scarce. And of course, because water is so scarce, black market prices have skyrocketed, so now a kilo of flour costs US$16,” he adds.

“Before the war, Gaza was beautiful, it had clean, nice streets, now it's all destruction... The only means of transportation available are donkey carts.

We've gone back to long before the Middle Ages. The social fabric is practically destroyed... People feel powerless and exhausted by this war, and even more exhausted by hunger and thirst."