GENEVA: The Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, an official from the World Food Programme said on Wednesday.
“We are getting closer by the day to a famine situation,” said Gian Caro Cirri, Geneva director of the World Food Programme (WFP).
“There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds — food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality — will be passed in the next six weeks.”
A UN-backed report published in March said that famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July. On Tuesday, a US official said the risk of famine in Gaza, especially in the north, was very high.
Cirri was speaking at the launch of a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, an alliance of humanitarian and development actors including United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the European Union and the United States.
In its report, the network described the 2024 outlook for the Middle East and Africa as extremely concerning due to the Gaza war and restricted humanitarian access, as well as the risk of the conflict spreading elsewhere in the region.
“As for Gaza, the conflict makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to reach affected people,” Cirri said.
“We need to scale up massively our assistance... But under the current conditions, I’m afraid the situation will further deteriorate.”
The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza’s ruling Islamist militant group Hamas.
Israel has denied hindering supplies of humanitarian aid and blames aid agencies for inefficiencies in distribution.
Israel’s military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with a humanitarian disaster unfolding since Oct. 7, when Hamas ignited war by storming into southern Israel.
Cirri said that the only way to steer clear of famine in Gaza was to ensure immediate and daily deliveries of food supplies.
“They’ve been selling off their belongings to buy food. They are most of the time destitute,” he said.
“And clearly some of them are dying of hunger.”

BEIRUT: Iran has reduced its military footprint in Syria after a succession of strikes blamed on Israel, a source close to Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and a war monitor said Wednesday.
Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said.
“Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria,” including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hezbollah said.
But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added.
Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling.
But Iran had already begun drawing down its forces after a January 20 strike that killed five Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, including their Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, the source close to Hezbollah said.
Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Iranian forces had withdrawn from Damascus and southern Syria.
Iran-backed Lebanese and Iraqi fighters had taken their place, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Iran has said repeatedly that it has no combat troops in Syria, only officers to provide military advice and training.
But the Observatory says as many as 3,000 Iranian military personnel are present in Syria, supported by tens of thousands of Iran-trained fighters from countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Abdel Rahman said that many of Iran’s advisers had left Syria over the past six months, although some remained in Aleppo province in the north and in Deir Ezzor province in the east.