By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

“While over 90 percent 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 ceasefire.”

“Gaza’s shocking descent into starvation was so predictable as to be premeditated, an ongoing war crime by the Government of Israel,” Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director, Sally Abi Khalil said in a statement on Thursday. 

Abu Khalil’s statement was a reaction to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, also published on Thursday, which warned of an impending famine in Gaza. 

“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,” Oxfam’s regional director said, adding, “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.”

The entire population of Gaza is facing “an imminent risk of famine” with more than half a million people facing “catastrophic conditions” – UN agencieshttps://t.co/5pypPBBZY5 pic.twitter.com/GaKoHE76FC

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 22, 2023

“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.  

“While over 90 percent 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 ceasefire.  

“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. 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.” 

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 20,050 Palestinians have been killed, and 53,320 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7. Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

(The Palestine Chronicle)