The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is urging the United Nations to recognise Israel’s onslaught as having induced a food insecurity crisis in Gaza.
Palestine’s Foreign Ministry has issued a communique address to the United Nations, calling on the international organisation to recognise Israel’s blockade and genocidal war as inducing a famine in Gaza.
The communique, published in a post via X, said that for every five people hungry in the world, four would be from the Gaza Strip.
“More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are starving,” it said.
As such, the ministry “calls on the UN Security Council to hold Israel responsible for the genocide by famine and break the siege on the Gaza Strip imposed by the occupation forces”.
This follows a December 21 food security analysis of Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
In their survey from November 24 to December 7 of 2.2 million Palestinians, the IPC found 93% of the population to be experiencing crisis level, or worse, food insecurity.
This means that the majority of Palestinians are marginally able to meet their food intake needs.
Or, at worst, victims of Israel’s onslaught are battling extreme malnutrition, starvation, destitution or even death by hunger.
The IPC’s survey identified 17% of the Strip’s population to be in this “catastrophic” famine-level category.
The IPC concluded Israel’s air, land and sea bombardment of the enclave as “the main driver of the extremely high levels of acute food insecurity in the Gaza Strip”.
UN officials have also sounded the alarm about the rising levels of starvation amid Israel’s continuous pounding of Gaza.
In a post via X attributed to Volker Türk, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel was called upon to facilitate the safe entry of much-needed aid into Gaza. Amid Israel’s shelling and truck inspections, humanitarian aid trucks have been delayed in responding to the needs of Palestinians.
“Starvation must never be a means or result of warfare,” Türk said.
