ActionAid, a global charity, disclosed on Friday, February 16, 2024, that hunger among residents in Gaza has reached “unprecedented levels, as people run out of even animal feed to eat.”
“An unprecedented and totally avoidable hunger crisis” has led to “every single person in the territory now experiencing extreme levels of hunger”, it said.
The charity warned that “as grim as the picture is, things will get substantially worse” if Israel proceeds with its plans for a full military operation in Rafah.
Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, noted that it is appalling to watch the world standing by as the people of Gaza “slowly starve in what is a completely avoidable catastrophe.”
According to her, the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling clearly stated that the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza must be facilitated yet instead, people have grown hungrier by the day.
Jafari said the situation is most bleak in the north of Gaza, where about 300,000 people are almost completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
“People who were so desperate that they were resorting to grinding up animal feed to use as flour are now finding that even this poor substitute is completely running out,” she said.
“As grim as the picture is, things will get substantially worse if Israel proceeds with its plans for a full military operation in Rafah, which is the main centre of aid distribution for the entire strip. Aid operations will grind to a complete halt, denying a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of people.”
Riham Jafari
Jafari stated that the consequences are unimaginable.
Additionally, Jafari urged that governments around the world must do everything in their power to prevent a further onslaught in Rafah and push for a permanent and immediate ceasefire.
“It’s the only way to stop the indiscriminate killing of civilians, allow aid to enter Gaza and be distributed safely at scale to prevent famine and deadly disease outbreaks,” she said.
Moreover, ActionAid said that as well as a dwindling and inconsistent supply of food for people to buy, prices are also very high.
“A lack of fuel and cooking gas means families are burning anything they can find to cook what little food they have with potentially dangerous health consequences,” ActionAid said.
According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is now classified as facing either crisis, emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
ActionAid said that the amount of aid being allowed into Gaza each day “is shamefully insufficient” and needs to “be scaled up immediately.”
A Disaster For The Future Of Peace Looms
Also on Friday, the UN High Commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi asserted that a spillover of refugees from Gaza’s Rafah into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula would be a disaster.
Earlier, UN Aid Chief, Martin Griffiths said that it was an “illusion” to think people in Gaza could evacuate to a safe place and warned of the possibility of Palestinians spilling into Egypt if Israel launches a military operation in Rafah.
He called this scenario “a sort of Egyptian nightmare.”
“It would be a disaster for the Palestinians … a disaster for Egypt and a disaster for the future of peace,” Filippo Grandi told a news agency on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering in the southern German city.
When asked whether Egyptian authorities had contacted the UNHCR about possible contingency plans, he remarked, “The Egyptians said that people should be assisted inside Gaza and we are working on that.”
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