UNRWA: “GAZA INCHES CLOSER TOWARDS VERY, VERY DEEP HUNGER”

NEW YORK, April 12 (Bernama-WAFA) -- “Gaza inches closer towards very, very deep hunger,” according to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA) reported.

“All basic supplies are running out. The prices of commodities have exponentially increased over the past month or so since the Israeli authorities imposed the siege on the Gaza Strip,” said Juliette Touma, Director of Communications at UNRWA, on Thursday.

“It means babies, children are going to bed hungry. Every day without these basic supplies, Gaza inches closer towards very, very deep hunger,” she added.

The World Food Programme used to provide bread from 25 bakeries across Gaza, but all of them are now closed.

Dwindling supplies are being sold at exorbitant prices, with a 25-kilogramme sack of flour retailing for $60 instead of $6, and a litre of cooking oil retailing for $10 instead of $1.50.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders says it is encountering children and pregnant women with severe malnutrition. Lactating mothers are too hungry to breastfeed.

Israel has closed the border crossings with Gaza since March 2, blocking the entry of humanitarian aid and medical supplies into the Strip and leading to an unprecedented deterioration of the humanitarian situation.

Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement and resumed its aggression on the Strip on Tuesday, March 18, carrying out a wave of bloody airstrikes across the Strip and killing hundreds of Palestinians, including over 100 children.

The death toll has reached at least 1,542, with 3,940 others wounded, according to medical sources. Emergency teams are attempting to recover victims still trapped beneath the rubble.

Medical sources added that within the last 24 hours, the bodies of at least 26 slain Palestinians and 106 casualties were admitted into hospitals across the Strip.

The aggression was resumed amidst concerns over the worsening humanitarian situation in the Strip due to the ongoing siege and the ban on the entry of medical and humanitarian aid.

Israel has waged a military onslaught on the Strip since October 2023, killing 50,912 Palestinians—mostly women and children—and injuring 115,981 others.

Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forced displacement of nearly two million people from across the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt—in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

-- BERNAMA-WAFA