A top UN official warned Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” as a result of more than six months of fighting and heavy Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory.
Cindy McCain, the American director of the United Nations World Food Programme, became the most senior foreign official to say that besieged inhabitants in Gaza’s most isolated area had reached the verge of hunger.
She said a ceasefire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes were essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which controls entrance into Gaza and says it is beginning to allow in more food and other humanitarian aid through land crossings.
The panel that serves as the internationally recognised monitor for food crises said earlier this year that northern Gaza was on the brink of famine and likely to experience it this month. The next update will not come before this summer.
Ramping up the delivery of aid on the planned US-backed sea route will be gradual as aid groups test the distribution and security arrangements for relief workers, the USAID official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity over security concerns for work done in a conflict zone. They were some of the agency’s first comments on the status of preparations for the Biden administration’s $320 million Gaza pier project, for which USAID is helping coordinate on-the-ground security and distribution.
At a factory in rural Georgia on Friday, USAID Administrator Samantha Power pointed to the food crises in Gaza and other parts of the world as she announced a $200 million investment to increase the production of emergency nutritional paste for starving children under 5.
” Power said. “And it could not be more timely, necessary or important.”
Under pressure from the US and others, Israeli officials in recent weeks have begun slowly reopening some border crossings for relief shipments.
But once the sea route is operational, aid coming through it will still serve only a fraction, half a million people of those who need help in Gaza. Aid organisations, including USAID, stress that getting more aid through border crossings is essential to staving off famine.
When wars, droughts, or other natural disasters cut off food supplies, children under the age of five are often the first to die. Hospital officials in northern Gaza reported the first hunger-related deaths in early March, with children accounting for the majority of the fatalities.
While US military forces complete construction of the pier, USAID is coordinating security and distribution with the World Food Programme, other humanitarian partners, and governments.
President Joe Biden announced the effort in March, under pressure to do more to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while also providing military support to Israel.
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