Gaza faces a serious risk of famine, with one in three people without food, warned the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
On Friday, UNICEF urged the international community to act quickly while the conditions continue to deteriorate due to the genocidal war of Israel.
“Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition,” said Ted Chaiban, deputy executive director of UNICEF on Friday for humanitarian and supply operations in the West Bank.
He said that the malnutrition indicator in Gaza had “exceeded the famine threshold”.
“Today, I want to keep the accent on Gaza, because it is in Gaza where the suffering is the most acute and where the children die at an unprecedented rate,” he said.
“We are at a crossroads, and the choices made will now determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die.”
Atef Abu Khater, a 17-year-old Palestinian, died of malnutrition on Saturday, a medical source from the Al-Shifa hospital told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Earlier this week, Khater, who had been healthy before the war in Gaza, was hospitalized in intensive care, according to the media, which quoted his father saying that he no longer responded to treatment.
Since October 7, 2023, the War of Israel against Gaza has killed at least 60,000 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children. Many others remain buried under the rubble, the most alleged dead.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the number of famine deaths in the territory is 162, including 92 children.
“ Israeli genocidal chaos designed ”
Ahmed al-Najjar, journalist and resident of Gaza who refers to Khan Younis, says that the Palestinians of the besieged territory are confronted with a “tragedy and torment” in the middle of Israeli bombing, forced famine and a complete feeling of insecurity.
“With cats, mice will play-except that it is not only a mouse, but an Israeli engineering genocidaire chaos,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune, stressing that security is “nowhere to find” in Gaza.
“We are not only referring to the constant fear that the Israeli bombs have fallen on our heads, but the fact that there is a total vacuum of security and power which leaves us here uncertain and uncertain of our own security,” said Al-Najjar.
He described that even walking on the street and going to buy a bag of flour or another basic necessity makes people uncertain if they can go home safely.
“There is no kind of presence of police officers or security forces in the streets; We have seen the continuous and systematic targeting of the police inside these “safe areas” here. “
In March, Israel prevented food aid by entering Gaza. He attenuated the blockade at the end of May, after which the controversial GHF in Igrael and the United States took over from the aid distribution in Gaza.
But the GHF was accused of violations of serious rights and the targeting of civilians. The UN says that more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed trying to get food from the GHF aid centers.
Many have been deliberately slaughtered by Israeli soldiers or US security entrepreneurs hired by GHF, according to testimonies from whistleblowers published in the media.
With famine through the strip, the international outcry on images of emaciated children and increasing death reports related to hunger have put pressure on Israel to leave more aid in the Gaza strip earlier this week.
The Israeli army last week began a daily “tactical break” of its military operations in some parts of Gaza and has established new aid corridors.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff also went to Gaza on Friday to inspect GHF’s help distribution site with Mike Huckabee, the American ambassador to Israel.
Diplomats “spent more than five hours inside Gaza,” said Witkoff in an article on X, accompanied by a photo of himself carrying a protective vest and meeting staff on a distribution site.
He added that the goal of the trip was to “help develop a plan to provide food and medical help to the inhabitants of Gaza”.
Meanwhile, several Western and Arab governments began to perform AIDROPS in Gaza earlier this week, to feed more than two million inhabitants. But aid agencies said they were deeply skeptical of what Airdrops could provide enough food in complete safety to combat a thorough hunger crisis in Gaza.
“Look, at this stage, each modality must be used, each door, each itinerary, each modality, but Airdrops cannot replace the volume and the scale that road convoys can achieve,” said Chaiban, adding that allowing around 500 humanitarian and commercial trucks to Gaza is important.
He also noted that what’s going on on the ground is “inhuman” and stressed that “what children in Gaza need all communities is a sustained ceasefire and a political path to follow”.
