The United Nations says Israel blocks food convoys three times more than other humanitarian convoys in the Gaza Strip, where famine is either already happening or will have arrived before July.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN said according to statistics from March, it was much more difficult to get clearance for delivering food than other aid in the besieged Palestinian territory.
“Food convoys that should be going particularly to the north, where 70 percent of people face famine conditions, are … three times more likely to be denied than any other humanitarian convoys with other kinds of material.”
Laerke told reporters in Geneva that “half of the convoys that we were trying to send to the north with food (in March) were denied by the very same Israeli authorities”.
He said “the obligation is on the warring parties, and in particular… on Israel as the occupying power of Gaza, to facilitate and ensure humanitarian access does not stop at the border.”
Israel is facing growing international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, which is facing a humanitarian catastrophe six months into the regime’s bombardment, blockade and full-scale ground offensive.
The regime, however, claims that the main problem is with UN aid distribution within the territory.
Laerke said those remarks are “meaningless.”
The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that at least 300 trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day and distribute food to meet only the basic hunger needs.
The UN agency, however, said it has only managed to take nine convoys into northern Gaza since the start of the year.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published a report in March, warning that famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 70% of the population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
The entire population of 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north “anytime between mid-March and May 2024,” said the IPC.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said later that this is the “highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded… anywhere, anytime,” by the IPC.
