Gaza Strip: UN Warns of Food, Water and Health Crisis
The agency said that access to emergency medical care is also a challenge for the population.
On Monday, a UN agency warned that food is now a major problem in Gaza, compounded by a shortage of clean water, a health crisis and a collapsed sanitation system.
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In a statement released here, the World Food Programme (WFP) denounced “Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea” against large areas of the coastal enclave, home to more than two million people.
Almost the entire population of Gaza is food insecure, this is a major problem in the territory, he stressed.
On the issue, it stressed that recent evacuation orders by the Israeli army further hamper the ability of humanitarian organizations to respond to the crisis, it said.
WFP explained that in Gaza City, located in the north of the enclave, WFP was forced to temporarily reduce food rations to families.
It warned that sanitation is almost non-existent in the Strip, a situation that exacerbates the problem and threatens to cause large-scale epidemics.
“Sewage and mountains of rubbish have led to sky-high infection rates,” he said.
The agency said that access to emergency medical care is also a challenge for the population.
With regard to the West Bank, it noted that security there has deteriorated significantly due to increased attacks by settlers and the Israeli military.
In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians are reported dead, thousands of arrests and restrictions preventing movement between towns and communities, he criticized.
“These restrictions, along with violence and checkpoints, severely impacted the economy and daily life,” he stressed.
Last month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that 90 per cent of children in the Strip suffer from severe food poverty and survive on two or fewer meals a day.
In a report on the sector worldwide, UNICEF warned that “months of hostilities and restrictions on humanitarian aid have collapsed food and health systems, with catastrophic consequences for children and their families”.
For its part, the NGO Action Against Hunger stressed that more than half a million children and mothers are in need of nutritional assistance in the territory, while half of the population there suffers from lack of food.
