At least 14 more people have lost their lives due to starvation and malnutrition in Gaza, taking the total number of victims to 147, including 88 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which the UN considers credible.
The international community has condemned Israel for weaponising aid and hunger as tools to inflict maximum damage on innocent civilians desperate for food.
The majority of these deaths have occurred in recent weeks as a hunger crisis grips the occupied territory due to Israel’s severe restrictions on the entry of aid.
Since the resumption of fighting on 19 March, Israel has imposed a total blockade on the already war-torn and devastated Gaza Strip.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has described people affected by hunger as “neither dead nor alive but walking corpses”.
Speaking at the ongoing two-day UN conference, Philippe Lazzarini said, “Words of condemnation make no sense when describing what is unfolding in Gaza.”
He added, “There must be immediate action to impose a long-overdue ceasefire, to reverse deepening starvation, and to release every hostage… Once a ceasefire is in place, a massive scale-up of humanitarian assistance can be enabled by UNRWA’s large workforce.”
US President Donald Trump, who is on a five-day state visit to Scotland, said Israel “has a lot of responsibility” for the situation in the territory.
Trump’s comments have once again put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to acknowledge that there is a starvation crisis in Gaza.
However, in a post on X on Monday, Netanyahu described the situation in Gaza as “difficult”, saying that Israel is working to ensure aid deliveries to the besieged Strip.
“There are over 40,000 infants under one year old in Gaza currently at risk of slow death due to this brutal and suffocating blockade,” the office said on Monday, accusing Israel of blocking the entry of the product for 150 days.
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