Looming famine and growing despair in Gaza: an unprecedented humanitarian crisis
Starvation threatens the population of Gaza, which faces the highest levels of food insecurity on record, according to UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths. In a statement released last Friday, Griffiths described Gaza as “a place of death and despair”, noting a death toll running into the tens of thousands, attacks on medical facilities and a lack of functioning hospitals.
The health situation is dire, with infectious diseases spreading in overcrowded shelters and overflowing sewers. According to Griffiths, around 180 Palestinian women give birth every day in this chaos. “Gaza has become simply uninhabitable. Its population witnesses daily threats to its very existence, while the world watches,” he said in the statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). ).
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, tens of thousands of Palestinians have died since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, while nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA). Israel launched this war in response to deadly Hamas attacks on October 7, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.
Meanwhile, rocket attacks against Israel continue, more than 120 people are still held hostage in Gaza, tensions in the West Bank are extremely high and the threat of a regional spread of war looms dangerously large, Griffiths added. , UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Young children are particularly vulnerable to severe malnutrition as famine conditions worsen, according to UNICEF. Survivors in the southern Gaza town of Rafah told CNN that basic goods such as fruits and vegetables have become unaffordable.
Griffiths urges all parties to “respect all their obligations under international law, including the protection of civilians and the provision of their basic needs, as well as to immediately release all hostages.” He adds that the international community must “use all its influence to make this happen.”
“We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not only for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but also for future generations who will never forget these 90 days of hell and attacks against basic principles of humanity,” he concluded.
“This war should never have started,” Griffiths said. “It’s high time it ended.”