Famine in Gaza ‘imminent’ unless Israel allows ‘roaring river’ of humanitarian aid: UN top official
- People in north Gaza have resorted to eating animal fodder and wild food, amid reports of children dying from malnutrition and dehydration at two hospitals
- It would need a concerted effort among international organisations to provide aid, which has come in ‘drips and trickles’ as a result of Israel’s restrictions
A famine that could kill thousands of Palestinian civilians in war-torn Gaza is “imminent” and may only be averted if Israel agrees to allow the current “trickle” of humanitarian aid to turn into a “roaring river”, the United Nations’ top aid official in Gaza has said.
Some 576,000 Gazans – about a quarter of the territory’s population – were assessed by the UN in late February as being a “one step away” from famine and a long, painful death.
Only unfettered access for huge volumes of food, medicine, fuel, equipment and experts needed for an effective humanitarian intervention can now prevent a catastrophe, UN agencies and their partner NGOs have warned over the last two weeks.
The situation is particularly dire in the northern part of Gaza, located at the opposite end of the strip from aid delivery points in the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah near the Egyptian border.
With hardly any aid reaching north Gaza, people there had resorted to feeding their starving children with animal fodder and wild food, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on March 4, amid the first reports of children dying from malnutrition and dehydration at two hospitals.
The number of such deaths reached 25 on Saturday, according to the Gazan health ministry.
“Indeed, a famine in Gaza is imminent,” Georgios Petropoulos, the Rafah-based head of the OCHA office for Gaza, told This Week in Asia.