UN: At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip – one quarter of the population – are one step away from starvation, a senior UN aid official told the UN Security Council on Tuesday, warning that widespread famine could be “almost”. inevitable’ without action.
One in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished and wasting, and virtually all of the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on “woefully inadequate” food aid to survive, Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , he told the council.
The World Food Program (WFP) “stands ready to rapidly scale up and scale up our operations if there is a ceasefire agreement,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the 15-member council.
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“But in the meantime, the risk of famine is fueled by the inability to deliver critical food supplies to Gaza in sufficient quantities and the near-impossible operating conditions faced by our staff on the ground,” he said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli records. Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza has since killed about 30,000 Palestinians, health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say.