A United Nations expert, Juliette Touma, says that the Gaza Strip is facing “unprecedented levels of hunger.”
“These are unprecedented levels of hunger. Gaza has never seen those. And this is only an indicator to how bad the situation has become very quickly but also the direct result of the siege and the lack of basic supplies, including food for two million people,” Touma said.
Currently, 90 percent of the population of Gaza is facing a hunger crisis amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Furthermore, up to 85 percent of the region’s residents have been forced to flee their homes in an attempt to escape the advancing Israeli forces, which is creating more and more problems, such as hunger and food shortages.
“The combination of the war and the siege and the lack of availability of basic supplies, including food, has led to the assessment that we’ve seen last night of unprecedented levels of hunger and starvation.”
On Friday, the UN adopted a resolution to increase international humanitarian aid; Israel’s offensive is creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of aid in Gaza, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
“Look, everything is needed,” he stressed. “And we’re talking here about the basics. And what people need most is safety and protection. They also need everything that is super basic, because they have lost everything, because the vast majority of them are now displaced, including in United Nations shelters.”
Israel launched a retaliatory operation after Hamas militants attacked on 7 October. At least 20,000 people killed and 50,000 injured in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
