More than 100 NGOs sound alarm over mass starvation in Gaza
The group, which includes Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Oxfam, say “mass starvation” is spreading across Gaza and that their colleagues in the enclave are wasting away from hunger.
“Doctors report record rates of acute malnutrition, especially among children and older people,” they said in a statement. “Illnesses like acute watery diarrhoea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up, and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration.”
“Distributions in Gaza average just 28 trucks a day, far from enough for over two million people, many of whom have gone weeks without assistance,” they said. “The UN-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning.”
The NGOs said governments must stop waiting for permission to act.
“It is time to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organisations,” they said. “States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition.”
“Piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures, like airdrops or flawed aid deals, serve as a smokescreen for inaction,” the statement said. “They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale. States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.”
Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a 1.5-year-old child, faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, in Gaza City, Gaza, on Monday.
Red Crescent warns of worsening situation as starvation deaths mount
As we’ve been reporting, at least 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, have died of starvation in Gaza.
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), said people in the enclave are facing an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” and warned the “situation is only getting worse”.
“Since the closure of all crossings for more than four months, there has been no food, no clean water, medicine… getting into the Gaza Strip,” Farsakh said in a video shared on social media.
“This has resulted to a catastrophe where people are literally starving to death,” she said.
“More people are being admitted to hospitals with malnutrition, especially among children, pregnant women and elderly,” she added.
Gaza’s Civil Defence spokesman calls on ‘the world’ to join his hunger strike
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence, says his hunger strike has entered the third day and called on “the world to match the reality on the ground, take action and go on a hunger strike to show that Gaza is not alone”.
“The main reason that pushed me to go on a hunger strike is that I see children who cannot eat, I see men, women, patients who cannot feed themselves. The sick are unable to feed themselves,” he said, adding that more than 1,000 people have been killed while looking for food, and 85 children have starved to death.
“We are living a daily catastrophe … People are falling to the ground, they faint out of exhaustion, out of hunger, out of starvation,” Basal added.
