Large groups of women and children are scavenging through rubbish heaps for food in parts of the Gaza Strip, a UN official said on Friday after a visit to the Palestinian enclave.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, expressed concern about levels of hunger, even in areas of central Gaza where aid agencies have teams on the ground.
“I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a news conference in Geneva via videoconference from Jordan. “Getting basic needs has become a daily, terrifying struggle for survival.”
Sunghay said the UN has been unable to send aid to the north of the Gaza Strip, where, he said, around 70,000 people remain due to “repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by Israeli authorities”.
Sunghay visited refugee camps for people recently displaced from parts of northern Gaza. They were living in horrific conditions, with severe food shortages and poor sanitary conditions, he said.
“It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to arrive – and it is not arriving. It is very important that the Israeli authorities make this happen,” he said. He did not specify the last time UN agencies sent aid to northern Gaza.
US alert
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last month laid out a series of measures for Israel to comply with within 30 days to deal with the situation in Gaza, warning that failure to comply with these actions could have consequences for US military aid to Israel.
The State Department said on November 12 that President Joe Biden’s administration concluded that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and was therefore not violating US law.
The Israeli army, which began its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the militant group’s attack on southern Israeli communities in October 2023, has said its operations in northern Gaza since October 7 are aimed at preventing militants from reorganizing and launch attacks from these areas.
The Israeli government body that oversees aid, Cogat, says it facilitates the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and accuses UN agencies of not distributing it efficiently.
The looting also depleted aid stocks inside the Gaza Strip, with nearly 100 food trucks being looted on November 16.
“The women I met had all lost family members, were separated from their families, had relatives buried under rubble, or were injured or sick,” Sunghay said of her stay in the Gaza Strip.
“Collapsing in front of me, they desperately pleaded for a ceasefire.”
This content was originally published in Women and children scavenge for food in Gaza, says the UN on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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