The north of the Gaza Strip is being hit by a “real famine”, which is progressing towards the south of the Palestinian territory, warns the director of the World Food Program (WFP), Cindy McCain.
In Gaza, “the famine is there, a real famine in the north, and which is moving towards the south,” declared the head of this UN agency in the extract broadcast Friday from an interview with the American channel NBC which will be broadcast in full on Sunday.
“When you have conflicts like this, with so much emotion, where so much is happening, famine happens,” she said.
“What we are asking for, what we have continued to ask for, is a ceasefire and the ability to have unhindered access to enter” Gaza to deliver aid humanitarian, Cindy McCain told NBC.
The WFP is one of several humanitarian agencies and organizations trying to get food into Gaza. The WFP, 2020 Nobel Peace Prize winner, describes itself as “the world’s leading humanitarian organization”.
The food situation is improving slightly in the Palestinian territory, but the risk of famine remains, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated on Friday. International aid, strictly controlled by Israel, arrives in trickles, mainly from Egypt via Rafah, but remains very insufficient given the immense needs of the 2.4 million Gazans.