World has failed to act on warnings of Gaza famine, says Oxfam
Oxfam says the IPC’s declaration of a famine in Gaza City confirms what the charity and its partners have been witnessing for months, and has called for aid to be immediately allowed into the territory.
“The famine in Gaza is entirely driven by Israel’s near-total blockade on food and vital aid, the horrifying consequence of Israel’s violence, and its use of starvation as a weapon of war,” said Helen Stawski, policy lead at Oxfam GB, the global poverty-focused NGO’s British arm.
“Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition and disease.”
She said that Oxfam had more than $3.3m worth of aid, including high-calorie food packages, sitting in warehouses outside Gaza. “Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever,” she said.
She said the failure of the UK government “to put any meaningful pressure on Israel, standing idly by as people – including babies – starve to death, is as bewildering as it is reprehensible”. “This has to stop,” she said.
‘We knew famine was going to come’
We’ve seen it happening on the ground, by the Israeli military attacking organisations, aid trucks, people who work in the aid system [and] destroying systematically the aid delivery mechanism across the Strip.
Altogether, [that] contributed to the point right now that we’re seeing: confirmed famine in Gaza.
We’re already seeing mass starvation mortality every single day. For the past month, on a daily basis, we hear about cases documented across the health facilities in Gaza City and across the Strip, of children dying of malnutrition.
It’s not just children, but also adults now, and those who are breastfeeding, those who are pregnant. Even adults who are trying to recover from their wounds are unable to recover because of this famine.
