GENEVA: Severely malnourished children in the Gaza Strip will be “certainly condemned to death” unless aid gets to them quickly, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warned Thursday.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said hunger was particularly acute in the north – where Gaza City is – where an estimated one million people remain.
Lazzarini said an evaluation on how famine has evolved in the Gaza Strip was due to be published soon, adding UNRWA health centres had seen a six-fold increase in the number of severely malnourished children since March.
“If no measures are taken immediately, they are certainly condemned to death,” he told the Geneva Press Club.
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People in the Palestinian territory are already dying of hunger and “there will be more, there’s no doubt about it”, said Lazzarini.
Rights group Amnesty International earlier this week accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza.
Without naming Israel, Lazzarini labelled it a “manufactured famine” and said food had been used “as a weapon of war”.
Israel heavily restricts aid coming into Gaza but has repeatedly rejected claims of deliberate starvation.
Israel has announced a plan to take over Gaza City and has warned that the north of the territory will be evacuated.
The UNRWA commissioner-general warned that a weakened, hungry population would struggle to withstand a new military operation in the city.
“We had described hell on Earth in Gaza,” he said.
“If this scenario were to unfold, even if we talk about the evacuation of people from Gaza to the south, many will no longer even have the strength to move.”
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