Palestinians gathered for food in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, in February.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The leader of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that much of Gaza was facing “catastrophic hunger” and that “famine-like conditions” have spread through the besieged territory after eight months of war that have made delivering food exceedingly challenging.
“Despite reports of increased delivery of food, there is currently no evidence that those who need it most are receiving sufficient quantity and quality of food,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W.H.O., an arm of the United Nations.
The warning from the global health authority came as Israel was facing mounting international pressure over its conduct of the war, and soon after a United Nations commission released a report on Wednesday accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. The report said that Israel, during its monthslong campaign to oust Hamas, was using starvation as a weapon of war through a blockade that restricts what supplies can enter Gaza.
Mr. Tedros said that 1,600 children in Gaza under 5 years old have been diagnosed with and treated for severe acute malnutrition, and that 8,000 had been diagnosed with acute malnutrition. He also attributed 32 deaths to malnutrition, including 28 among children under 5 years old.
The W.H.O. and its partners have “scaled up” nutrition services in Gaza, he said, but only two facilities in the enclave are set up to serve patients who were severely malnourished. Mr. Tedros added that the dire and dangerous conditions in Gaza have complicated the ability of aid groups to provide aid, and that they have been increasingly imperiling children’s lives.
“Our inability to provide health services safely, combined with the lack of clean water and sanitation, significantly increase the risks for malnourished children,” he said.
Aid groups and the U.N. have blamed the hunger crisis in Gaza on Israel’s restrictions on aid entering the enclave, while Israel has insisted that more than enough food is entering Gaza, but that Hamas has been stealing and hoarding supplies.
The Israeli agency that coordinates aid deliveries into Gaza, known as COGAT, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The agency’s latest online update, on Tuesday, said that 193 aid trucks entered Gaza via Egypt and two entry points in Israel on Monday, noting that 16 aid truck deliveries went to northern Gaza.
In a statement on social media, Hamas accused Israel of escalating “a brutal war of starvation” and aggravating “the humanitarian catastrophe and manifestations of famine in the Gaza Strip.” Hamas called on Arab and Muslim countries to exert pressure on Israel to allow more aid to be delivered.
For much of the war, one of the crucial entry points for aid has been a border crossing at Rafah between Egypt and Gaza. As a result, Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city, was one of the few places where desperate Gazans could find food and other supplies.
But after Israel seized the Rafah crossing in early May when it began its offensive there, Egypt responded by closing its side of the crossing. Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian officials have since wrangled over how to reopen the crossing to aid.
Though international aid agencies cannot officially declare whether Gaza meets the technical threshold for famine until more data is collected, the head of the U.N. World Food Program said in May that famine had arrived in parts of Gaza.
Even if the gates open to aid tomorrow, malnutrition experts say many more people will die from starvation, or from diseases like diarrhea, because their bodies are so weak and medical care is so scant.
And by the time famine is finally declared, “it’s already very, very late, and there’s already going to be widespread death,” Kiersten Johnson, who directs the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a U.S. government program that tracks hunger in global crises, said in May.
