A 20-YEAR-OLD PALESTINIAN woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” has died after being transferred to Italy for treatment.

The patient was admitted to Pisa University Hospital late on Wednesday and died on Friday.

She was removed from Gaza as part of a humanitarian mission and arrived with a “with a very complex, compromised clinical picture”, according to the hospital.

She died after entering a respiratory crisis and subsequently going into cardiac arrest, it said in a statement.

Hospital staff had performed tests and started supportive therapy before she died.

The woman, named by Italian media as Marah Abu Zuhri, had arrived in Italy with her mother.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said almost 120 Palestinians – 31 patients and their families – had been flown to Rome, Milan and Pisa on three planes.

Tajani said that it was the 14th medical evacuation of Palestinians that Italy had conducted since January 2024, and the largest.

The hospital did not specify whether the woman had suffered from malnutrition, but said that she had arrived in a “state of severe physical deterioration.”

Eugenio Giani, leader of the Tuscan region, expressed his condolences for the woman’s death.

Earlier in the week, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that starvation and malnutrition in Gaza were at their highest levels since October 2023.

The UN says nearly 12,000 children under five were found to have acute malnutrition in July – including more than 2,500 with severe malnutrition, the most dangerous level.

The World Health Organisation says the numbers are likely an undercount of the full number of children facing starvation in Gaza.