The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the tight Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip is pushing the coastal territory closer to an acute hunger crisis.
Philippe Lazzarini made the remarks in a social media post, in which he noted that the siege, which is preventing food, medicines, water and fuel from entering the region, has lasted longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war.
Israel has banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 4, following the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire and an agreement with Hamas resistance movement on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners.
Lazzarini warned that Gaza’s population depends on imports via Israeli-occupied territories for their survival. “Every day that passes without the entry of aid means more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread & deprivation deepens,” he said.
“Every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis,” the UNRWA chief noted. Lazzarini described the banning of aid as a collective punishment on Gaza’s population – the vast majority of which are children, women and ordinary men.
He called for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to be brought into Gaza “uninterrupted and at scale.”
Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 50,021 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 113,274 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
On November 21 last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its deadly war on the blockaded coastal sliver.
