Israeli war pushing Gaza into famine, 90% on brink of starvation: Oxfam

ISTANBUL (AA) – Israel’s brutal war is pushing Gaza into famine and a staggering 90% of the people there are on the brink of starvation, UK-based anti-poverty organization Oxfam has warned.

“While over 90% of people in Gaza cannot find their next meal, some UN Security Council member states are still toying with words rather than voting for a cease-fire,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa regional director.

His remarks came after the recently published Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report warned that Gaza faces a serious risk of famine if “intense hostilities and restricted humanitarian access persist or worsen.”

“Gaza’s shocking descent into starvation was so predictable as to be premeditated, an ongoing war crime by the Government of Israel,” Khalil was quoted as saying in the Oxfam statement.

“This is irrefutable proof that Israel’s attacks have decimated Gaza’s already fragile food system so catastrophically that most people are no longer able to feed themselves and their families. People are being starved in Gaza. Unless there is an immediate ceasefire and a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid, Gaza risks being pushed into a famine,” he added.

Khalil further said: “It is abhorrent and barely conceivable in 2023, that women, children and babies, the elderly and sick, the most vulnerable people have had their food weaponized against them.”

“The horror felt by a mother unable to feed her child is the horror of Gaza today,” he added.

“Those within the international community who have refused to rein in Israel’s military machine and its collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza today stand shamed and complicit – this scandal is on your watch,” the regional director said.

“You must no longer patronize this Israeli aggression that is killing so many civilians, even as it fails in its own terms by sowing the seeds of future insecurity for both Palestinians and Israelis alike,” he added.

Israel has heavily pounded the Gaza Strip since October 7, killing at least 20,057 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 53,320 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.

With hospitals having been targeted and destroyed or rendered dysfunctional, the wounded have no access to medical care.

Israeli attacks has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory’s housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely populated enclave amid severe shortages of food and clean water.