UN says ‘high risk of famine’ for Gaza

ROME — The population of Gaza, especially women and children, risk famine if humanitarian food supplies do not continue, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday. 

The WFP said it had delivered food to 121,161 people in Gaza since Friday, when a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas began.

The truce was extended by two days on Tuesday.

“Thanks to the pause, our teams have been in action on the ground, going into areas we haven’t reached for a long time. What we see is catastrophic,” said WFP’s director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer.

WFP estimated that it was “highly likely that the population of Gaza, especially women and children, are at high risk of famine if WFP is not able to provide continued access to food”.

The agency said that six days was “not enough to make any meaningful impact”, calling for “uninterrupted and regular supplies” of food into Gaza.

In Gaza, WFP has reached 759,082 people with food and vouchers since the start of the crisis.

The truce paused fighting that began on October 7 when Hamas fighters launched surprise attack on Israel. Israel’s ground and air operation in the Gaza Strip has killed almost 15,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s government.