Save the Children: Israel keeps blocking food for famine-stricken Gaza
The Save the Children charity organization says Israel is restricting the flow of much-needed humanitarian relief as the population of the besieged Gaza Strip faces the threat of famine.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the charity warned that malnourished children in Gaza were not getting the food and medical care they need to survive with food being blocked at every turn and the health system obliterated.
“Life-saving supplies which could be used to treat malnourished children are being delayed and denied entry by the Government of Israel,” the statement read.
“Essential food and medical items are obstructed from entering Gaza for days, weeks, or even months. Others are being denied entry altogether by the Israeli authorities, with reports of oxygen cylinders, ventilators and water purifiers being turned away at the border.”
Country Director Xavier Joubert also censured Israel for using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
“Starvation must never be used as a weapon of war – 27 children have already been killed by starvation and disease. If the world fails to act now countless more children will be added to that number.”
Gaza's 346,000 children under the age of five are at the greatest risk of malnutrition as the already catastrophic situation rapidly deteriorates across the besieged Palestinian territory.
In the north, it is estimated that one in three children under the age of two is now suffering from wasting, the most severe form of malnutrition, compared to one in six children in January.
A senior US State Department official said on Friday that famine was quite possibly present in parts of the northern Gaza Strip,
Humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza, with unimaginable and unnecessary suffering.
Nearly all the 1.1 million children in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Families are struggling to find enough food and water, with children already dying because of malnutrition and disease.
Almost every child who has managed to survive the past four months of war is now in the line of fire in Rafah.
The majority of the displaced population – more than 1.3 million people – are trapped in an area of just 62 square kilometers.
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