This Tuesday, UN humanitarian professionals warned that a growing number of babies are “on the brink of death” due to acute famine in Gaza, caused by five months of intense Israeli bombing and constant denials of access to aid.
This Tuesday, UN humanitarian professionals warned that a growing number of babies are “on the brink of death” due to acute famine in Gaza, caused by five months of intense Israeli bombing and constant denials of access to aid.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that medical teams are increasingly witnessing the effects of famine, including newborn babies who simply die “because they have very low birth weight.”
In response to the findings of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza published on Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk stated that the famine is the result of “extensive restrictions of Israel to the entry and distribution of food, humanitarian aid and commercial goods.”
Turk noted that “in the face of hunger” families have now resorted to sending children from the north to southern Gaza “unaccompanied, in the desperate hope that they will find food and support among the 1.8 million people already displaced there.”
The high commissioner’s comments about the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza echoed warnings from the UN secretary-general on Monday. António Guterres reiterated his appeal to the Israeli authorities “to guarantee complete and unrestricted access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza”.
Speaking to journalists in New York, the United Nations leader called on the international community “to fully support” the UN’s humanitarian efforts.
He stated that “Palestinians in Gaza are enduring horrific levels of hunger and suffering”, describing the IPC report as a “terrible demonstration of conditions on the ground for civilians”.
The WHO said medical teams working in the war-torn enclave have been receiving an increasing number of dangerously underweight pregnant women.
According to Margaret Harris, Gaza was a territory “where the health system worked well” and malnutrition was “non-existent”.
To help the most vulnerable inhabitants and save lives, WHO’s goal is to establish emergency malnutrition stabilization centers. However, the agency’s expert said progress has been hampered by a lack of security and continued obstacles to accessing aid.
Margaret Harris explained that a center has already been set up in the south, but the attempt to do the same in the north is limited by the difficulty of taking materials without guarantees of access and security.
She reinforced calls for aid to be allowed into Gaza on an “enormous scale” and stated that “the desperation is so great” that when this happens, relief supplies “will be absorbed like sand”.
Source: UN News
