The United Nations humanitarian chief has given a devastating update on the food shortage crisis in Gaza, telling the BBC that 14,000 babies could die in the next 48 hours unless aid trucks filled with food and life-saving necessities make it into the strip.
On Monday, five trucks full of aid were let into the war-ravaged strip, with a further 93 on Tuesday. However, speaking to the BBC on Tuesday night (local time), UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher explained that it wasn’t enough.
“There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,” he explained.
Describing the situation as “utterly chilling”, Fletcher explained that the import of aid was imperative and worth the risks involved.
“This is not food that Hamas are going to steal,” he continued.
“We run the risk of looting, we run the risks of being hit as part of the Israeli military offensive, we run all sorts of risks trying to get that baby food through to those mothers who cannot feed their children right now because they’re malnourished.
“But this is what we do — we keep going. It will be frustrating, we will be impeded, we will run huge risks, but I don’t see a better idea than getting that baby food into those mums who, at the moment, cannot feed their own kids.”
On Tuesday, the director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told the World Health Assembly in Geneva that “two million people are starving” as tonnes of food are blocked at the border “just minutes away”.
“The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid,” he said.
According to a press release by the WHO last week, the food shortages in Gaza are “one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time”.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza has been going on for 11 weeks.
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