The United States has begun airdropping humanitarian aid into Gaza, two US officials told CNN.
President Joe Biden said Friday that “the aid going into Gaza is nowhere near enough.”
Biden also reiterated that the US is trying to push for an immediate ceasefire between Hamas and Israel to allow more aid to Gaza. At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip – one quarter of the enclave’s population – are on the brink of starvation, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs jobs. The humanitarian disaster is particularly severe in the north, after almost five months of Israeli air and ground campaign.
According to Reuters reports, people are eating livestock feed, and in several cases children have died in hospitals from malnutrition and dehydration. The UN said it was facing “enormous obstacles” in providing aid.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that ten children died of starvation in the besieged Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.
“The official records, yesterday or this morning, say that the tenth child has been officially registered in the hospital as having died of starvation,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said at a United Nations (UN) briefing in Geneva.
Lindmeier warned that the unofficial figures are “unfortunately probably higher”.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said extreme food shortages were “almost inevitable” under the current circumstances.
“If something doesn’t change, hunger is almost inevitable in the current conditions,” he said, adding that they are able, willing and able to do something about it, but that the conditions must be adequate.
Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing at least 30,228 people and causing widespread destruction and shortages of supplies in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
On January 26, following a genocide lawsuit filed by the Republic of South Africa, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel must refrain from any actions related to the killing, attacks and destruction of the residents of the Gaza Strip and take all measures to prevent genocide, AAwrites.
The next meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the Gaza Strip will be held on March 7, Japanese Ambassador to the UN Kazuyuki Yamazaki said today.
“Currently, the Middle East consultations are planned for March 7. It will be a chance for the Security Council to discuss issues related to Gaza,” Yamazaki said.
Japan chairs the UN Security Council during March.
Photo: Anadolu Agency
