Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by
a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 1, 2024. (Photo: Majdi
Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
UN
Says Food Availability Has Hit 'All-Time Low' in Gaza as Forced Famine Takes
Hold
"The window of opportunity to
deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow," said the deputy
director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Dec 03, 2024
A top official at the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization said Monday that food availability across Gaza has reached "an
all-time low" under Israel's suffocating blockade, which has heavily
restricted the entrance of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and plunged the
enclave into famine.
"Food supply has sharply deteriorated," FAO Deputy
Director-General Beth Bechdol said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt. "The window of
opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow. Food, medicine,
and fuel are self-evident priorities, but we must also prioritize the ability
to grow food locally where it is needed most to ensure survival."
Bechdol's grim assessment came weeks after the Biden
administration pressured Israel to improve
conditions on the ground in Gaza, which has been utterly devastated by more
than a year of bombing.
Aid organizations say that far from improving, Gaza's
humanitarian crisis has only gotten worse since the Biden administration
threatened to cut off the supply of U.S. weapons to Israel. Last month, the
U.S. effectively dropped its pressure campaign by concluding
that Israel was not violating international law by blocking American
humanitarian assistance.
Most of Gaza's population is currently experiencing "high
levels of food insecurity," according to the latest Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification (IPC) figures, and the "risk of Famine persists across the
whole Gaza Strip."
"The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete
breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop."
In addition to obstructing aid deliveries, Israeli forces have decimated Gaza's agricultural infrastructure and cropland,
repeatedly attacked aid workers, and facilitated the looting of humanitarian supplies, fueling
desperation among Gaza's starving population. Last week, as The
Associated Pres sreported, "two children and a woman were crushed to
death... as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza
Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory."
Amina Mohammed, the U.N.'s deputy secretary-general, said at
the Cairo conference on Monday that "conditions for Palestinians in Gaza
are appalling and apocalyptic," with malnutrition running "rampant"
and famine "imminent."
"In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were
hospitalized due to acute malnutrition—nearly double the cases in the first
half of the year," Mohammed said. "In the face of the gigantic needs,
humanitarian aid is—outrageously—being blocked. This flies in the face of the
clear requirements under international humanitarian law to respect and to
protect civilians and to ensure their essential needs are met."
"It's past time for an immediate cease-fire and the
immediate and unconditional release of all hostages," she added. "The
catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity.
The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away."
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Jake Johnson is a senior editor and
staff writer for Common Dreams.
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