Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Middle East as the number of dead in the ongoing Gaza War has crossed the 30,000 mark and over 576,000 Gazans face famines in the coming days.
The United Nations has said at least 576,000 people in the war-torn Gaza Strip are only a step away from famine, the media reported on Thursday.
The UN’s warning came as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire again on Palestinians waiting for food aid in northern Gaza.
Officials of the world body accused Israel of “systematically” blocking aid from reaching desperate Palestinians in Gaza, warning that at least one-quarter of the enclave’s 2.3 million population was a step away from famine if no urgent action is taken.
The warnings on Tuesday came as footage from northern Gaza showed Israeli forces again firing on a Palestinian gathering to collect food in the area.
It was not immediately clear if the shooting led to deaths or injuries.
Israel’s war on Gaza, now in its fifth month, has killed at least 29,878 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The assault began after Hamas – the armed terror group governing Gaza – launched brutal attacks inside Israel on October 7, killing some 1,139 people and taking 253 others captive.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign – including daily air attacks, a ground offensive into north and central Gaza, and the closing of all but one crossing point into the territory – has laid much of the Palestinian enclave to waste and triggered a worsening humanitarian crisis.
“Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – one step away from famine,” Ramesh Rajasingham, the deputy chief of the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA), told the UN Security Council (UNSC).
One in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting and practically all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on “woefully inadequate” food aid to survive, he told the meeting on food security in Gaza.
“If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable and the conflict will have many more victims,” he said.