Doha: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that each day without food delivery to Gaza Strip pushes the region closer to a full-blown hunger crisis, with grave consequences for over two million people suffering under siege and starvation amid the renewed genocidal war on Gaza’s population.
According to Qatar News Agency, Acting Director of UNRWA’s Media and Communications Office in Gaza, Inas Hamdan, stated that the ongoing ban on aid to the Strip amounts to collective punishment of residents who have already endured over 16 months of relentless war.
She highlighted that medical supplies and food stocks are rapidly depleting, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe both in terms of food security and the already fragile healthcare system. She added that most efforts by humanitarian organizations to coordinate aid deliveries with Israeli authorities have been rejected.
Hamdan emphasized that the humanitarian disaster extends to the environmental sphere as well. The lack of sufficient fuel is hampering the operation of water wells and disrupting solid waste management services. This is contributing to a rise in disease outbreaks, water contamination, and the spread of insects due to accumulating waste and untreated sewage leaks.
Since the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in early March, Israeli authorities blocked the entry of humanitarian and commercial supplies into Gaza. As a result, essential goods dwindled, with some stocks projected to last only a few more days unless truck deliveries resume urgently.