The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said today it is suspending food aid deliveries to the northern Gaza Strip until conditions in the Palestinian enclave allow for safe distribution.
“The decision to stop deliveries to the northern part of the Gaza Strip was not taken lightly, as we know it means the situation there will deteriorate further and more people are at risk of starvation,” the UN food program said in a statement. which is based in Rome.
Three UN agencies – the WFP, the World Health Organization and the children’s agency UNICEF – said yesterday, Monday 19/02, that food and safe water are extremely scarce and diseases are widespread resulting in a sharp increase in of acute malnutrition in Gaza, four months into the Israel-Hamas war.
WFP pauses deliveries to the North of #Gaza.
WFP is deeply committed to urgently reaching desperate people across Gaza. But the safety AND security to deliver critical food aid – and for the people receiving it – must be ensured.
FULL STATEMENT: https://t.co/0F2iYlktDL
— WFP in the Middle East & North Africa (@WFP_MENA) February 20, 2024
The food crisis is particularly severe in the north, where in January one in six children under the age of two were reported to be acutely malnourished and where “the situation is likely to be even more serious today”, the agencies said.
The WFP said it resumed food deliveries to the north on Sunday, after being suspended for three weeks due to an attack on a UN refugee agency (UNRWA) truck, and the absence of a functioning humanitarian information system.
A convoy of trucks began moving toward Gaza City but struggled to make progress as starving crowds tried to attack the trucks, which then came under gunfire as they entered the city, the agency said.
The next day, WFP trucks were looted between Khan Younis in the south and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and a driver was beaten, the UN agency said.
The Israeli military launched its offensive to eliminate Hamas in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7 raid in southern Israel in which Israel said 1,200 people were killed and 253 captured by the Islamist militant group. At least 29,000 people have since been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
Source: RES-MPE
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