More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than two million people face severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the United States and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May – effectively sidelining the existing UN-led system.
A statement with 111 signatories, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”.
Israel has hit back at criticism that it was behind the chronic food shortages in Gaza, instead accusing Hamas of deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.
France has also warned of a growing “risk of famine” caused by “the blockade imposed by Israel”.
The head of the World Health Organization weighed in, saying that a “large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving”.
“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation – a and it’s man-made,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, said there was “no famine caused by Israel. There is a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas”.
Aid agencies have said permissions from Israel were still limited, and coordination to safely move trucks to where they are needed was a major challenge in an active war zone.
Mencer said humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accused Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.
With no let-up in deadly Israeli strikes across the territory, getting aid to the more than two million people who need it has become a key issue in the conflict.
Doctors and aid agencies have reported increasing cases of malnutrition and starvation. The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said Tuesday that 21 children had died due to malnutrition and hunger in the Palestinian territory in the past three days.
The humanitarian organisations said in a joint statement that warehouses containing tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, were locked, preventing access to or delivery of the goods.
“Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the signatories said. “It is not just physical torment but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage.”
The 111 signatories called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists added its voice to the appeal, accusing Israel of “starving Gazan journalists into silence”, after Agence France-Presse reporters in Gaza said they were all affected by the lack of food.
In Khan Younis, in Gaza’s south, residents told of how they battled to get food aid, with one man calling it “a catastrophic scene and a real famine”.
The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get aid since late May, most near GHF sites.
GHF and Israel have accused Hamas of firing on civilians.
Even after Israel began easing its aid blockade in late May, Gaza’s population is still suffering extreme scarcities.
GHF said the UN, which refuses to work with it over neutrality concerns, had “a capacity and operational problem” and called for “more collaboration” to deliver life-saving aid.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,219 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official figures.
Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with each side blaming the other for refusing to budge on their key demands.
