UNITED NATIONS: UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) Jamie McGoldrick said that hunger has reached catastrophic levels in Gaza.
Describing a two-day visit to war-ravaged Gaza, he said that children are dying from hunger.
In a media talk with reporters in New York via videolink, he demanded for a plan to address the crisis, stating that immediate needs would include using a military access road to northern Gaza for a minimum of three hundred aid trucks every day.
Hunger in Gaza has grown exponentially since the Israeli invasion launched on October 7.
Women face unprecedented difficulties in Gaza
During visits to the Misq and Layan camp in Al Mawasi in Gaza, McGoldrick said displaced women informed hin about the impact of the war and of their needs, which include security, hygiene, privacy, and the inability to prepare for Ramadan.
He said that the women said daily life in a community-driven camp entails facing sexual harassment on the way to unsegregated washrooms, gender-based violence, and a lack of clean water.
One woman informed she had given birth and then was forced to return to the camp only two days later with her other children, one of whom is living with disabilities, he said, adding that the women said she was unable to breastfeed her newborn baby due to the lack of food.
He said that at night, walking through the camps, one can hear the women crying.
One in six children under age 2 in northern Gaza is acutely malnourished.
Some of the people he met said they had been displaced many times, and that if Israel’s expected ground invasion of Rafah occurs, there is no mechanism to safely evacuate those already seeking shelter in the south.
