'It's scary': World Food Program chief calls for immediate ceasefire and 'free access' to besieged areas.
The head of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said northern Gaza was suffering from “full-scale famine” and warned that Gaza was “moving southward”.
In an interview with NBC News scheduled to air on Sunday, Cindy McCain said her comments were based on what WFP saw and experienced on the ground. United Nations officials and aid agencies have been warning about such a scenario for months.
“It's horror. It's hard to watch and hard to hear,” McCain said on the network's Meet the Press program.
“What we're asking for, and what we're continuing to ask for, is a ceasefire and free access, the ability to safely enter through different ports and gates,” she said, according to a video clip of the interview. ” he said.
On Saturday, a delegation from the Palestinian group Hamas was in Egypt to continue ceasefire talks amid mounting international pressure to reach a deal.
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said there had been “some progress”.
But Israel has threatened to launch a ground invasion into Rafah, the southernmost part of the enclave that is home to more than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians who have fled relentless Israeli shelling in other parts of the Gaza Strip. .
Israel has severely restricted the entry of vital humanitarian supplies into Gaza, despite warnings from allies and the United Nations that famine is looming in parts of the Palestinian territory. The country's forces also repeatedly attacked and killed Palestinian civilians who were waiting to collect aid in the Strip.
This week, the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing into northern Gaza resumed, but Israeli settlers attacked two aid convoys sent by Jordan. The United Nations said the amount remains insufficient to meet the huge and growing needs of Gaza's starving people.
The United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Tiering had previously warned that more than 70 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people faced “catastrophic hunger” any time between mid-March and May.
On Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that at least 34,654 Palestinians had been killed and 77,908 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.