BRUSSELS: All of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants lack sufficient food and face malnutrition a month into Israel’s devastating siege of the Palestinian enclave, a World Food Programme official said on Thursday.
Humanitarian aid has only trickled into Gaza since Israel began bombarding the densely populated enclave in response to Hamas’ raid on southern Israel that killed some 1,400 people on Oct. 7. United Nations officials say the supplies coming into Gaza are nowhere near enough to meet the population’s needs.
“Before October 7th, 33 percent of the population were food insecure,” said Kyung-nan Park, director of emergencies for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). “We can safely say that 100 percent are food insecure at this moment.”
She said WFP needed $112 million to be able to reach 1.1 million people in Gaza in the next 90 days. “They are facing the risk of malnutrition,” she said.
In addition to funding, WFP also needs regular entry into Gaza and safe access once inside to be able to reach the people in need, she added.
Since re-opening of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border with Egypt for humanitarian cargo on Oct. 21, the daily average number of trucks that have crossed into Gaza has been less than 19 percent of what it had been before the conflict, according to the UN humanitarian office.
“Right now we’re entering 40 to 50 trucks,” Kyung-nan said of WFP. “For just WFP food assistance, we would need 100 trucks a day to be able to provide any meaningful humanitarian food to the people in Gaza.”
Kyung-nan said WFP staff members in Gaza themselves did not have enough to eat. WFP used to work with more than 23 bakeries in the densely populated enclave but only one is still functioning due to the lack of fuel and supplies, she said.
“There are stories of people going there, being in line for ten days and leaving empty handed,” she said. “It’s quite serious.”
Gaza population lacks food, faces malnutrition, UN food program official says
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Gaza population lacks food, faces malnutrition, UN food program official says
- Kyung-nan Park, director of emergencies for WFP said: “We can safely say that 100 percent are food insecure at this moment"
- WFP needed $112 million to be able to reach 1.1 million people in Gaza in the next 90 days
Syria ministry says gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’
Syria ministry says gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’
- Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in the attack on Saturday, which the US Central Command said had been carried out by an alleged Daesh group (IS) militant who was then killed.
The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, was once controlled by Daesh during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the United States.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
US President Donald Trump called the incident “a Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” using another term for the group.
He said the three other US troops injured in the attack were “doing well.”
