The United Nations has warned that the risk of famine and malnutrition is “increasing by the day” in the besieged Gaza Strip, as Israel’s strict blockade has cut off vital resources and caused the densely-populated territory to grapple with a humanitarian disaster.
At a press conference on Wednesday, UN secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric stressed that since the beginning of the current Israeli war on the Palestinian territory in early October, the world body has warned about severe food shortages there.
“Four months since the escalation of hostilities, OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) is warning that in Gaza, severe food shortages, a breakdown in health services and inadequate facilities for water, sanitation and hygiene are putting children under the age of 5, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women, at increased risk of malnutrition,” he said.
In his daily update, Dujarric also warned that the risk of malnutrition is particularly high for some 300,000 people in northern Gaza who have been largely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
Citing the World Food Programme, OCHA has reported that the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza City in the north is “not enough to prevent a famine”, as the last time the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) managed to distribute food in the north of the territory was on January 23.
With hostilities entering their 5th month, hundreds of thousands remain in the area to the north of Wadi #Gaza – largely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
In the south, over half of Gaza’s population is crammed in Rafah, in abysmal living conditions.
Latest update 👇
— OCHA oPt (Palestine) (@ochaopt) February 7, 2024
Dujarric’s comments came almost a week after he said that UN humanitarian partners distributed supplementary nutrition assistance to nearly 42,000 children under the age of five, and almost 4,000 pregnant women and nursing mothers.
However, he said on Wednesday that “a new screening by our humanitarian partners indicates a sharp rise in acute malnutrition, with a 12-fold increase compared to the rate recorded before the hostilities.”
Meanwhile, Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said on Tuesday that the occupying regime was weaponizing hunger in its attacks against inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
“Israel is clearly and systematically obstructing access to food for all civilians in Gaza,” he warned.
The latest figures by the UN show that almost a quarter of Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants are suffering from hunger, while the rest are under-nourished.
Israel waged its brutal war on besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out an unprecedented operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 67,000 others.
Israel has imposed a “complete siege” on the densely-populated territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
