Gaza is the ‘hungriest place on Earth’, the United Nations has said, warning it is the only defined territory in the world where the entire population is at risk of famine.
Israel is blocking all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke said, with almost no ready-to-eat food entering the enclave.
Laerke said only 600 of 900 aid trucks had been authorised to get to Israel’s border with Gaza, and from there a mixture of bureaucratic and security obstacles made it all but impossible to safely carry aid into the region.
“What we have been able to bring in is flour,” he told a regular news conference yesterday. “That’s not ready to eat, right? It needs to be cooked ... 100 per cent of the population of Gaza is at risk of famine.”
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said people in Gaza were being subjected to forced starvation by Israel, leading to a change in the international response to Gaza.
Asked if his assessment of forced starvation amounted to a war crime, he said: “It is classified as a war crime. Obviously, these are issues for the courts to take the judgement on, and ultimately for history to take a judgement on.”
Tommaso della Longa, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, added that half of its medical facilities in the region were out of action for lack of fuel or medical equipment.
Israel began to allow limited aid into Gaza last week, after an almost three-month blockade had halted the delivery of supplies such as food, medicine, fuel and shelter.
It also resumed its military offensive two weeks after imposing the blockade, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
&uuid=(email))