Gaza City, Palestinian Territories — Gaza is slipping into famine, the UN aid agencies warned Tuesday, as the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said the Palestinian death toll in the nearly 22-month war had surpassed 60,000.
The World Food Programme, UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization warned that time was running out and that Gaza was “on the brink of a full-scale famine”.
“We need to flood Gaza with large-scale food aid, immediately and without obstruction, and keep it flowing each and every day to prevent mass starvation,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said in a joint statement from the agencies.
This week, Israel launched daily pauses in its military operations in some parts of Gaza and opened secure routes to enable UN and other aid agencies to distribute food in the densely packed territory of more than two million people.
However, Israeli strikes continued overnight, killing 30 people in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to Gaza’s civil defense agency — and experts warn a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions was imminent.
“The worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises.
The IPC, whose advice is followed by UN agencies, stopped short of declaring a state of famine, but made clear the situation is critical.
– Urgent action now –
Britain, France and Germany could send their foreign ministers to Israel next week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, adding: “We assume that the Israeli government is willing to acknowledge that something must be done now.”
In a statement released ahead of the IPC report, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of distorting casualty figures and of looting food designated for civilians.
“While the situation in Gaza is difficult and Israel has been working to ensure aid delivery, Hamas benefits from attempting to fuel the perception of a humanitarian crisis,” the statement read.
“We already allow significant amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza every single day, including food, water and medicine. Unfortunately, Hamas… has been stealing aid from the Gaza population, many times by shooting Palestinians.”
Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2 after ceasefire talks broke down. In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume, amid warnings of a wave of starvation.
Then on Sunday, faced with mounting international criticism, Israel began a series of “tactical pauses” while allowing aid trucks to pass through two border crossings into Gaza, and Jordanian and Emirati planes to conduct airdrops.
Shipments have been ramped up, but the IPC said this effort would not prove enough unless aid agencies were granted “immediate, unimpeded” humanitarian access.
“Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the Strip,” it said, warning that 16 children under the age of five had died of hunger since July 17.
“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” it said.
According to Netanyahu’s office, the pause in military operations covers “key populated areas” between 10:00 am (0700 GMT) and 8:00 pm every day. Designated aid convoy routes will be secure from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm.
COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry body in charge of civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said more than 200 truckloads of aid were distributed by the UN and aid agencies on Monday.
Air strikes –
Another 260 trucks were permitted to cross into Gaza to deposit aid at collection points, four UN tankers brought in fuel and 20 pallets of aid were airdropped from Jordanian and Emirati planes, COGAT said.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Tuesday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians, including women and children, in the central Nuseirat district.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the strikes were carried out overnight and into the morning and “targeted a number of citizens’ homes” in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
An Israeli military spokesman told AFP that he would need more information to enable him to look into the strikes.
The Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday that Israel’s campaign in Gaza had killed 60,034 people, the majority civilians.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, the majority civilians, based on an AFP tally of official figures.
Also on Tuesday, France condemned the “murder” in the West Bank of a Palestinian activist who contributed to an Oscar-winning documentary, describing Israeli settler violence against their Palestinian neighbors as “an act of terrorism”.
Palestinian authorities said Israeli settlers killed Awdah Muhammad Hathaleen, a teacher, on Monday. The Israeli police said it was investigating but did not directly comment on the claim that he was killed by settlers.