World Health Organisation (WHO) Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that people in Gaza are “starving to death” and that more than a million people will continue to be at risk unless more food is allowed in.
He wrote on X that the hunger situation in Gaza is devastating and famine is imminent and could have serious immediate and long-term health consequences.
He added that before October 7, 2023, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population, and malnutrition was rare.
He stressed that people are dying of hunger in Gaza, and there are increasing numbers of patients, warning that more than a million people will be at risk unless more food is allowed to enter.
The United Nations World Food Program warned that death of starvation would be the fate of thousands of children if program crews were not allowed into northern Gaza.
WFP Chief Economist Arif Hussein provided information to journalists at the United Nations about the Integrated Interim Classification (IPC) report, saying that children are dying of hunger in the Gaza Strip, especially in the north.
He added that the program is about to declare a famine in northern Gaza.
He added that famine means announcing our collective failure as humanitarian relief worker. “It means that we failed and people and children died of hunger.”
“Therefore, the necessary measures must be taken before famine occurs,” he stressed, emphasising that “children are dying of hunger” throughout Gaza.
“If we cannot enter northern Gaza, not 20 or 30 children will die, but thousands of them. We cannot allow this,” he added.
The (IPC) report, prepared by United Nations institutions, showed that 70 percent of the population of the northern Gaza Strip faces “catastrophic hunger.”
Due to the ongoing war and the restrictions of the Israeli occupation on the Gaza Stripe, the population of Gaza, especially the Gaza and North governorates, are on the verge of famine, due to severe scarcity of food, water, medicine and fuel supplies, given the displacement of about two million Palestinians from the Strip, which has been besieged by the occupation for 17 years.
It should be noted that the right to food is guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which requires the international community and humanitarian institutions to work together to provide the necessary food aid to the people of Gaza.
Since October 7, the Israeli occupation army has waged a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which has left an enormous humanitarian catastrophe and a major health and environmental disaster.
The Israeli occupation destroyed the only supplies of fuel, electricity, water, and food for the people of the Gaza Strip at the start of the conflict by bombing bakeries, factories, stores, water stations, tanks, and other infrastructure.
