Food markets are empty. Human waste is piling up. Illness is spreading. And people in Gaza are “collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration.”
That’s the stark warning issued by more than 100 international humanitarian organizations on Wednesday, in a joint statement calling on Israel to end its blockade, restore the full flow of food, clean water and medical supplies to Gaza, and agree to a ceasefire.
“Every day without a sustained flow of aid means more people dying of preventable illnesses,” said the statement, signed by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and dozens of other NGOs. “Children starve while waiting for promises that never arrive.”
Scores of people – most of them children – have died of malnutrition since the conflict began in October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry says.
Israel has said it is allowing ample aid into the besieged Palestinian territory, but aid agencies and multiple Western nations say the amount of food reaching Gaza’s population under strict Israeli control is a fraction of what is needed.
The United Nations World Food Program has warned that famine is looming, and 70,000 children in Gaza need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.
Images taken by news agency photographers on the ground in Gaza show the reality of spreading disease and famine:
