UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has called for preventing Israel’s planned offensive on Rafah, saying it will further intensify the suffering of the Gaza people and risks widening the conflict.
The planned offensive of Israel in Rafah must be stopped, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, deputy permanent representative of Pakistani to the UN, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday while highlighting the threat of famine.
The Pakistani diplomat also warned against the imminent threat of famine in the war-hit Gaza Strip, pointing out Israel’s ongoing five-month genocidal military campaign has martyred 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, and displaced the whole 2.3 million population of the enclave with half a million people facing starvation.
Destruction Caused by Israeli Forces in Gaza
Compounding the already grave situation, he said Israeli troops not only leveled Gaza’s cities, they have also brazenly destroyed agricultural land and the fishing fleet of Gaza.
Earlier, three UN humanitarian officials warned that there was a high risk of conflict-induced famine in the enclave if the war does not stop soon.
Director of the coordination division in the UN humanitarian office Ramesh Rajasingham said that if nothing is done, a widespread famine in Gaza was almost inevitable, and the conflict, which since October has claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 people and wounded more than 70,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, would have many more victims.
Rajasingham said at least 576,000 people in Gaza — 25 percent of the population — were one step away from famine, and practically the whole population was relying on insufficient humanitarian food assistance to survive.
Carl Skau, the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director, said that, unfortunately, there was every possibility for further deterioration. Gaza was facing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world, and one child in every 6 under the age of 2 was acutely malnourished.
Assistant director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Maurizio Martina, explained how the whole food supply chain had been impacted by the war.
