The famine crisis is deepening as Israeli forces press a devastating ground offensive in retribution against the October 7 attacks, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied in a March 10 interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company, that people were starving in Gaza. He blamed Hamas for the lack of humanitarian aid entering the occupied territory.
Responding to the dire IPC assessment, top European Union officials called the hunger crisis in Gaza “unprecedented.”
“No IPC analysis has ever recorded such levels of food insecurity anywhere in the world,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign affairs official, and EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič.
“Life-threatening levels of acute malnutrition have risen at an alarming rate since the last report, and we are already witnessing with horror the death of children due to starvation,” they added in a joint statement.
“Hunger cannot be used as a weapon of war. What we are seeing is not a natural hazard but a man-made disaster, and it is our moral duty to stop it.”
In February, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners planned 24 relief missions to northern Gaza, of which only six were facilitated by Israeli authorities.
The WFP last Tuesday delivered its first successful convoy to northern Gaza since February 20. On Sunday night, another convoy with 18 trucks reached Gaza City. Addressing basic food needs, however, requires at least 300 trucks to enter Gaza every day, the U.N. agency estimates.
