‘High risk of famine’ for Gaza, WFP warns
The population of Gaza, especially women and children, risk famine if humanitarian food supplies do not continue, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned.
The WFP said it had delivered food to 121,161 people in Gaza since Friday, when a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas began. The truce was extended by two days on Tuesday.
"Thanks to the pause, our teams have been in action on the ground, going into areas we haven't reached for a long time. What we see is catastrophic," said WFP's director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer, on Tuesday.
WFP estimated that it was "highly likely that the population of Gaza, especially women and children, are at high risk of famine if WFP is not able to provide continued access to food".
The agency said that six days was "not enough to make any meaningful impact", calling for "uninterrupted and regular supplies" of food into Gaza, reports AFP.
In Gaza, WFP has reached 759,082 people with food and vouchers since the start of the crisis.
Samer Abdeljaber, the WFP representative and country director in Palestine, said that program's teams witnessed "hunger, despair, and destruction" among people who have not received any relief for weeks, reports Anadolu online.
The humanitarian pause provided a moment of relief, he said, "which we hope will pave the way for long-term calm."
The uninterrupted and secure delivery of humanitarian aid must continue now without obstacles, he added.
Unicef spokesperson James Elder told Anadolu he arrived in Gaza ahead of the humanitarian pause between Hamas and Israel and found the situation "worse" than he had imagined.
Elder told in a virtual interview that he witnessed the devastation, trauma and stress on faces when he arrived in the besieged enclave.
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