UN food agency chief says women and children are ‘starving’ in Gaza

The head of the UN food agency has said it was “very evident” during her visit to Gaza this week that there is not enough food in the Palestinian territory and that she spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the urgent need for more aid.

The world’s leading authority on food crises said last week that the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it was likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Cindy McCain, the World Food Programme’s executive director, told The Associated Press that starvation was under way in Gaza.

“I personally met mothers and children who were starving in Gaza,” she said.

“It is real and it is happening now.”

Mr Netanyahu, she said, was “obviously very concerned that people aren’t getting enough food”.

In the past, he has denied that there is famine in Gaza and said the claims about starvation are a propaganda campaign launched by Hamas.

“We agreed that we must immediately redouble our efforts to get more humanitarian aid in. Access and security for our convoys is critical,” Ms McCain said.

The famine declaration has increased international pressure on Israel, which has been fighting Hamas since the militant group’s deadly October 7 2023 attack.

Israel now says it plans to seize Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, and there have been no public signs of progress on recent efforts for a ceasefire.

Israel rejects the declaration – issued by the authority on food crises known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification – and on Wednesday asked for a formal retraction.

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory, known as COGAT, said on Thursday that more than 300 humanitarian aid trucks enter Gaza every day, most of them carrying food.

But aid groups say it is not nearly enough after 22 months of fighting, the blockade of aid earlier this year and the collapse of food production in Gaza.

Ms McCain spent most of Tuesday on a tour of Gaza speaking to displaced families living in tents and facing hunger.

“I got to meet a family who had come from the North, there were 11 of them, and they’d come from the North and they literally had not had enough food at all and they still don’t have enough food,” she said.

Ms McCain said her programme is getting more food into Gaza, but said a surge in food supplies was needed.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said famine in Gaza is “a present-day catastrophe” and the start of expanded Israeli military operations presents “a new and dangerous phase”.

He said it will have “devastating consequences” and force hundreds of thousands of traumatised and exhausted civilians to flee again.

“Gaza is piled with rubble, piled with bodies, and piled with examples of what may be serious violations of international law,” he said.

Mediators Egypt and Qatar were still waiting for Israel’s response to a 60-day ceasefire proposal in Gaza, which has been accepted by Hamas, the Qatari foreign minister said on Thursday.

The proposal, which Egyptian and Qatari mediators delivered to Israel earlier this month, calls for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages and the handover of bodies of 18 dead ones, according to Arab mediators.

It also calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to a buffer zone on Gaza.