The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned today about the growing risk of famine in the Gaza Strip, where, according to him, two million people are starving.
“The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing due to the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, including food, amid the ongoing blockade,” Ghebreyesus said during the opening of the WHO member states’ annual meeting in Geneva.
He added that two million people are starving while tons of food are stuck at the border, only minutes away from them.
Under international pressure due to the blockade that is starving Palestinians in Gaza, Israel announced on Sunday that it will allow a limited continuation of humanitarian aid as it launches large-scale ground operations in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the decision to allow aid into Palestinian territory, more than two months after Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza on March 2, as “difficult but necessary.”
The WHO chief stated that the escalation of conflict, evacuation orders, reduction of humanitarian space, and blockade of aid have led to a surge in casualties overwhelming an already burdened health system.
“People are dying from preventable diseases while medicines wait at the border, and attacks on hospitals deprive people of care and discourage them from seeking it,” he added.
He emphasized that several thousand patients urgently need to be evacuated from Gaza for medical reasons.
Ghebreyesus called on WHO member states to accept more patients, and urged Israel to allow these evacuations and permit the entry of food and medicine into Gaza.
The United Nations and international humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip have condemned the shortages for weeks.
