Alwaght- The number of children in Gaza who are dying slowly is enlarging as the Israeli regime continues to deny food to the besieged enclave as as weapon to impose defeat on resistance groups there, warned UNICEF regional director for West Asia and Africa.
Adele Khodr, according to Press TV, urged Israel to open all border crossings to allow aid into the Gaza Strip citing the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) recent report warning of an “imminent famine” in Gaza.
"The IPC findings on Gaza confirm what we have been warning about of impending famine for months now. The world’s inaction is shocking as more children succumb to a slow death. All border crossings must open now to allow unfettered access of humanitarian aid,” she wrote in a social media post.
The IPC, a group that includes the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza with people suffering “catastrophic levels of hunger.”
1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity, it stated.
In a statement published on Monday, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Samantha Power said the IPC report is a “reality” for Gazans.
"The catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition described in the IPC report should be unimaginable in the current era, but for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, this is the reality,” Power said.
The Israeli government had been starving the Gazans as a weapon in a bid to inflict a defeat on Hamas, a resistance group that rules Gaza.
Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid for Gaza may amount to a starvation tactic that could be a war crime, the United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, said on Tuesday.
“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” Turk added.
Also, the WHO warned of death of newborn babies due to starvation of mothers in Gaza.
“What doctors and medical staff are telling us is more and more they are seeing the effects of starvation; they’re seeing newborn babies simply dying because they (are) too low birth weight,” said Dr Margaret Harris from the UN World Health Organization.
“Increasingly, we’re seeing children that are at the point, brink of death that need refeeding,” the WHO spokesperson told journalists in Geneva, a day after global nutrition experts warned that famine could happen “anytime” in northern Gaza.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday reiterated his appeal to the Israeli authorities “to ensure complete and unfettered access for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza”.
Speaking outside the Security Council in New York, Guterres also urged the international community “to fully support” the UN’s humanitarian efforts.
“Palestinians in Gaza are enduring horrifying levels of hunger and suffering”, the UN chief said, describing the IPC report as an “appalling indictment of conditions on the ground for civilians”.
