Washington:
The head of the United Nations Food Program warned of “full-scale famine” in northern Gaza and reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Israel's war against Hamas.
“There is hunger, full-blown hunger in the North, and it is moving south,” World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said in interview excerpts published Friday.
“What we are asking for, and what we continue to be asking for, is a ceasefire and the ability to have unfettered access to safely enter Gaza across different ports and different gates,” McCain said. He continued.
The World Food Program is one of many humanitarian organizations trying to raise aid for Gaza.
The World Health Organization said Friday that food availability in the Gaza Strip has improved only slightly, although the risk of famine remains in the besieged Palestinian territory, home to 2.4 million people.
Israel has repeatedly accused the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations of not distributing aid fast enough.
Aid agencies blame Israeli-imposed restrictions and inspections for the trickle of essential goods into Palestinian enclaves.
Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 sparked the Gaza war, killing more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli officials.
The insurgents also took about 250 hostages, and Israel estimates that 128 of them remain in Gaza, and 35 of them are believed to have died.
Israel's devastating retaliatory campaign has killed at least 34,622 people in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run region's health ministry.
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