Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been facing starvation and thirst during Israeli attacks on the blockaded enclave since October 2023.
“More than two million Palestinians in Gaza face the risk of dying from starvation and thirst as the Israeli occupation denies aid deliveries and restricts access to medicine, food and water,” Hamas said in a statement.
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that UNRWA is working to protect the legitimate rights of Palestinians under international law, and said that they need “urgent humanitarian intervention in the Gaza Strip”.
Children in the Gaza Strip are dying of hunger, families are on the verge of starvation due to the lack of basic survival supplies.
According to a previous announcement by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), a maximum of 30 trucks of humanitarian aid enter the Gaza Strip per day, which is very little to meet the needs of the people there. Before October 2023, hundreds of trucks crossed the border daily to feed more than two million people in the Palestinian enclave.
Since the start of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, numerous international and UN groups have been calling on Israel to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave to avert famine.
On October 28, the Israeli parliament passed a bill to ban UNRWA’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel launched the war in the Gaza Strip after a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,300 people, mostly women and children, and wounding more than 104,900.
Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, AA writes.