About two million Palestinians in Gaza suffer from a severe shortage of food and medicine (Reuters)

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that the last time the agency was able to deliver food aid to the northern Gaza Strip was on January 23.

Lazzarini added - on his account on the

Severe famine prevails in the northern Gaza Strip, affecting tens of thousands of displaced people and the region's residents, with the lack of most basic foodstuffs and the Israeli occupation forces preventing the entry of aid into the region.

In turn, UNRWA media advisor Adnan Abu Hasna said that the agency had tried since the beginning of last January to enter 35 aid convoys into the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, but Israeli obstacles prevented most of them from entering, and only 10 convoys were allowed to enter.

Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera that the very small number of humanitarian aid trucks that are able to enter the Gaza Strip only meets 10% of the Strip’s needs.

He added that the average entry of trucks before the Israeli war on Gaza was around 500 trucks per day, while the average currently does not exceed 85 trucks.

The Commissioner-General of UNRWA warned a few days ago that the agency had reached the point of collapse (French)

Israeli warning

For its part, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority said that the security establishment warned the government that Israel would bear responsibility for the crisis in Gaza if an alternative to UNRWA was not found.

In turn, the Walla website quoted Israeli security officials as saying that it is very difficult to provide humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip without UNRWA.

The specter of famine looms over various parts of the Gaza Strip, as about two million people suffer from severe shortages of food, medicine, and even shelter places.

The Commissioner-General of UNRWA warned last Thursday that the agency had reached a “breaking point,” with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle it, and donors, led by the United States, freezing their funding to it in the face of unprecedented humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies