By Quds News Network
Gaza (Quds News Network)- One-third of families in Gaza are going an entire day without food due to Israel’s ongoing genocide and blockade of aid, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
In a statement, the WFP and its partners said families in Gaza are surviving on thin broths, lentils or rice, one piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known locally as duqqa.
It said that due to the extreme shortage of food, Palestinians routinely risk their lives to get some food.
“The majority of casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarised zones,” said Johnathan Whittall, head of office for the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The UN confirmed that since 27 May, 549 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and 4,066 injured while trying to access food near the US-backed aid sites.
Other services are being pushed to the brink. As a result of fuel shortages, only 40 percent of drinking water facilities are functional, and 93 percent of households face water insecurity, the statement said.
On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.
An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report last month warned that almost a quarter of the civilian population would face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase Five) in the coming months.
After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Israel continues to severely restrict the amount of food entering the war-battered Strip with the UN confirming that it is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians and only a few trucks of aid reaching Gaza.
Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that “weaponizing aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity.”
“Every day Palestinians are met with carnage in their attempts to receive supplies from the insufficient amount of aid trickling into Gaza,” MSF said.
The commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, condemned the “lethal” US-Israel aid distribution mechanism in Gaza. In a post on X, Lazzarini indicated that Palestinian lives “have been so devalued”.
“It is now the routine to shoot & kill desperate & starving people while they try to collect little food from a company made of mercenaries,” he said.
“Inviting starving people to their death is a war crime. Those responsible of this system must be held accountable. This is a disgrace & a stain on our collective consciousness.”
27 June 2025
Source: countercurrents.org