(Adnkronos) – The entire population of the war-ravaged, blockaded Gaza Strip is facing famine as fighting has surged again since March and an Israeli aid blockade has made food “dangerously scarce”, the United Nations World Food Programme said on Monday.
“Families in Gaza are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border. We can’t get it to them because of the renewed conflict and the total ban on humanitarian aid imposed in early March,” said Rome-based WFP’s executive director Cindy McCain.
“It’s imperative that the international community acts urgently to get aid flowing into Gaza again. If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people,” McCain underlined.
Hunger and malnutrition have soard since border crossings were closed and all aid was prevented from entering the Gaza Strip on 2 March after a two-month ceasefire ended, reversing the clear humanitarian gains seen during the truce, the WFP statement said.
A total 470,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger and the entire population is experiencing acute food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification snapshot released on Monday, the statement said. The IPC Phase 5 is defined by catastrophic food shortages with “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels”.
The report predicts that an alarming 71,000 children and over 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition, exceeding forecasts by agencies at the start of the year that around 60,000 children would need treatment.
The vast majority of children in Gaza are facing extreme food deprivation as confirmed by 17 UN agencies and NGOs in the IPC report. Coupled with the severely limited access to health services and critical shortages of clean water and sanitation, rapid increases in acute malnutrition are expected in North Gaza, Gaza and Rafah governorates.
“The risk of famine does not arrive suddenly. It unfolds in places where access to food is blocked, where health systems are decimated, and where children are left without the bare minimum to survive,” said UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell.
“Hunger and acute malnutrition are a daily reality for children across the Gaza Strip,” Russell continued.
“We have repeatedly warned of this trajectory and call again on all parties to prevent a catastrophe,” Russell said.
The closure of all border crossings into Gaza for over two months – the longest the population has ever faced – is causing food prices to spike to “astronomical” levels, making what little food is available out of reach for most families, WFP said.
WFP and UNICEF remain on the ground in Gaza ready to deliver lifesaving aid urge all sides to put the needs of civilians first and allow desperately needed aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, the statement said.
Over 116,000 metric tons of food aid – enough to feed one million people for up to four months – is already positioned in aid corridors, ready to be brought into the Gaza Strip, the statement noted.
Hundreds of pallets of lifesaving nutrition items are also prepositioned for entry and UN agencies are ready to work “with all stakeholders and food security partners” to bring in these food and nutrition supplies and distribute them ethically as soon as Gaza’s borders reopen, according to the statement.
WFP finished its last food stocks to support hot meals kitchens for families on 25 April and a week earlier all 25 WFP-supported bakeries closed as wheat flour and cooking fuel ran out, said the statement.
WFP food parcels for families containing two weeks of food rations were exhausted the same week, the statement added.
UNICEF is still delivering water and providing critical nutrition services but its stocks for preventing malnutrition have run out and supplies for treating acute malnutrition are “critically low”, the statement warned.
