More than 100 non-governmental organizations warned on Wednesday of the risk of a “mass famine” in the Gaza Strip, devastated by the ongoing war that has lasted for more than 21 months.
At the end of May, Israel partially eased the comprehensive blockade it imposed on the Strip in early March, which had led to severe shortages of food, medicine, and other essential goods.
On Wednesday, the NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Oxfam International, and several branches of Médecins du Monde and Caritas, said that “as mass famine spreads in the Gaza Strip, our colleagues and the people we help are suffering from emaciation.”
In their joint statement, the organizations called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the opening of all land crossings into the Strip, and ensuring the free flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip.
This statement comes a day after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused the Israeli military of killing more than 1,000 people at aid distribution points in Gaza since the end of May, most of them near sites affiliated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organization supported by the United States and Israel and whose funding is opaque.
