2024-02-29 14:30:48
The UN warned that a quarter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is on the verge of famine and that almost the entire population urgently needs food, which led to attacks on aid trucks and looting, amid new Israeli attacks and with the death toll about to exceed 30,000 despite efforts towards a truce.
U.N. food and humanitarian agency officials said Gaza’s 2.3 million people face critical levels of food insecurity, and law enforcement is collapsing, especially in the north, where food and other humanitarian resources are scarce. They are very scarce.
The deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), Carl Skau, stressed that If the situation does not change, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza. He also said the WFP resumed deliveries in that area for the first time in three weeks on February 18, and expected to send 10 trucks a day for seven days to meet immediate food needs. However, on both February 18 and 19, convoys faced delays at checkpoints, gunfire and other violence, and food looting.
“The breakdown of civil order, driven by sheer desperation, is preventing the safe distribution of aid, and we have a duty to protect our personnel,” Skau argued to justify the suspension of delivery of essential goods until the conditions are met to guarantee the safety of its personnel.
Childhood hunger
As grim as the current situation is, UN humanitarian coordinator Ramesh Ramasingham explained that there is every chance of further deterioration. According to him, a quarter of the population of Gaza, or some 576,000 Palestinians, are on the brink of famine, and that one in six children under two years of age residing in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting, that is, the most visible and lethal form of malnutrition, with emaciated bodies..
Precisely this Wednesday six children died from dehydration and malnutrition in the north of the enclave: four in the Kamal Adwana hospital and two in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the Gazan Ministry of Health reported in a statement, which called on international institutions “to take immediate measures to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.” in the north of the Strip”, warning that in Kamal Adwana there are seven other children who are in serious danger of death for the same reasons as the six who died.
Attacks on hospitals
Both Kamal Adwana and Al-Awda Hospital announced the complete suspension of their servicesreported the official Palestinian news agency HE DIED. These hospitals thus joined a long list of medical centers that can no longer cope with the large number of wounded and sick left by the war, either due to the destruction of their facilities, the cut off of electricity or drinking water, or the lack of supplies, personnel and food as in the case of these two.
Under the argument that the Islamist group Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to carry out its war operations, The Israeli Army attacked numerous hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the most important in the entire Strip and which can now only provide emergency services. Israeli forces stormed there shortly after beginning their ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave last year, despite the fact that thousands of wounded, sick, displaced and medical personnel were inside. In that military operation, troops found Hamas tunnels near and beneath the medical center.
According to the latest balance sheet from the Gaza health ministry, The total number of dead rose to 29,954 – most of them women and children – and 70,325 injured., within the framework of Israel’s bombing campaign against the Strip, in retaliation for the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 that killed around 1,200 people and took 240 hostages. “Several victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation prevents ambulances and civil protection teams from reaching them,” denounced as every day the Ministry, which estimates that There are still about 8,000 bodies under the rubble.