Northern Gaza In Grip Of Full-Blown Famine, UN Food Agency Chief Says
Starting early last month, the director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, informed US lawmakers in Congress for the first time that the population in parts of northern Gaza has begun facing famine. This testimony served to hasten international efforts to more efficiently get aid into the Strip, such as the Pentagon’s Gaza pier project, though it didn’t put a halt to the Western weapons flowing to Tel Aviv.
Now, a top UN official has warned the crisis is worse than previously assessed. The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Cindy McCain is now warning that northern Gaza is in the midst of a “full-blown famine.”
She further said that famine is “moving its way south” in a new NBC News interview set to air Sunday. She described that this is base on the humanitarian office’s assessment on the ground.
“It’s horror. It’s so hard to look at and it’s so hard to hear,” McCain told sources. “What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a ceasefire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings.”
But a ceasefire is unlikely to come for at least a week, given how long Israel has just given Hamas to respond to a fresh ultimatum. “Israel has informed Egyptian mediators that Hamas has one week to agree to a hostage deal or Tel Aviv will begin the invasion of Rafah,” sources write. “The Israeli proposal does not offer a permanent ceasefire, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that the attack on the city will occur with or without the release of hostages.”
Conditions for the civilian population are expected to compound in the south if Israel’s military goes through with its planned ground offensive against Rafah.
“The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu told representatives of hostage families this past Tuesday. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory.”
