UNITED NATIONS, United States: Famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza, the World Food Programme warned on Tuesday as no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid in Gaza since January 23.
As a dire humanitarian emergency unfolds in the Gaza Strip and the main UN aid agency there struggles to respond, other organizations are also scrambling to provide aid to thousands of Palestinians in desperate circumstances.
“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” said WFP’s deputy executive director Carl Skau at the UN Security Council, while his colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of “almost inevitable” widespread starvation.
“Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza — one-quarter of the population — one step away from famine, with one in six children under two years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting,” Rajasingham added.
Maurizio Martina, deputy director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), warned that about 97 percent of Gaza’s groundwater is unfit for human consumption and agricultural production is falling.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said Tuesday that aid was ready and waiting at the border.
“WFP colleagues also tell us that they have food supplies at the border with Gaza, and with certain conditions they would be able to scale up feeding up to 2.2 million people” across the Strip, Stephane Dujarric told media.
“Almost 1,000 trucks carrying 15,000 metric tons of food are in Egypt ready to move,” he said.
But the Israeli military is “systematically” blocking access to Gaza, said OCHA spokesman Jens Ralek in Geneva earlier Tuesday.
In recent weeks, all planned aid convoys to the north have been rejected by Israeli authorities.
According to the World Health Organization, the last time people were allowed to enter the country was on January 23.
Meanwhile, UNRWA, the main UN aid agency in the Gaza Strip, said last week that it had “reached breaking point” as humanitarian needs increased due to aid freezes and Israeli pressure to dispose of bodies.
Other organizations told the 15-nation body that the Security Council must act.
“We must all double down and live up to our responsibilities to ensure it does not happen on our watch,” Skau said.
