UNICEF official slams world’s ‘shocking inaction’ on impending famine in Gaza
Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s regional director for Middle East and North Africa, has called for the opening of all crossings into Gaza after a UN-backed report warned of imminent famine in northern parts of the enclave.
“The IPC findings on #Gaza confirm what we have been warning about of impending famine for months now,” she said in a post on X.
“The world’s inaction is shocking as more children succumb to a slow death. All border crossings must open now to allow unfettered access of humanitarian aid.”
The IPC findings on #Gaza confirm what we have been warning about of impending famine for months now.
The world’s inaction is shocking as more children succumb to a slow death.
All border crossings must open now to allow unfettered access of humanitarian aid. https://t.co/lbYzXBQIGY
— Adele Khodr (@AdeleKhodr) March 18, 2024
The West is giving Israel weapons while discussing delivering aid to Gaza
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/18/the-west-is-giving-israel-weapons-while-discussing-delivering-aid-to-gaza
As lawmakers across much of the West debate the extent to which Israel may be hampering the passage of life-saving aid into Gaza, the weapons exports that underpin much of Israel’s war on the besieged enclave continue to flow.
Since the war began, the volume of weapons entering Israel has increased as huge volumes of ordinance are used to flatten areas of Gaza as well as kill, maim and displace its civilian population.
“On the one hand, we have this dire humanitarian need, on the other hand, we have this continual supply of weapons to the country Israel, [which is] creating that need,” Akshaya Kumar, director of crisis advocacy at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said.
While “Western states have recently been going to great lengths to have Israel recognise its role in creating the suffering we’re seeing in Gaza”, she said, “we’re not seeing any corresponding reduction in the flow of weapons from states such as the US, Germany and beyond”.
Gaza has become ‘open-air graveyard’
Speaking following a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Gaza has become a “graveyard for the many of the most important principles of humanitarian law”.
“Gaza was before the war the greatest open-air prison. Today, it is the greatest open-air graveyard,” he told reporters.
