According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “severe levels of acute food insecurity” are being experienced by Gaza’s two million residents.
When questioned about circumstances in the zone by the BBC, he indicated that this was the first time an entire people had been thus categorized. Mr. Blinken urged Israel to put helping people in need first. According to UN agencies, if violence doesn’t stop and aid doesn’t increase significantly, north Gaza might experience hunger by May.
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As efforts to broker a truce continued, Mr. Blinken issued his warning while visiting the Philippines. US authorities had already stated that he would be making his sixth journey to the Middle East since October. On March 19, 2024, Israeli negotiators are scheduled to start negotiations in Qatar to reach a new agreement with Hamas that would put an end to hostilities, allow humanitarian supplies to enter, and free Israeli hostages.
One of Mr. Blinken’s best speeches to date described the gravity of the Gaza humanitarian issue. In response to a question from the BBC about whether the territory’s current state portends future events in the absence of a consensus on government or security, he replied: “According to the most respected measure of these things, 100% of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That’s the first time an entire population has been so classified.”
According to Mr. Blinken, acute food insecurity occurs when a person’s failure to eat enough food puts their life or means of subsistence at imminent risk. If left untreated, it can result in starvation, “We also see again, according to in this case the United Nations, 100% – the totality of the population – is in need of humanitarian assistance,” he added. “Compare that to Sudan, about 80% of the population there is in need of humanitarian assistance; Afghanistan, about 70%. So, again, this only underscores both the urgency, the imperative, of making this the priority.”
He repeated his appeal for Hamas to give up its weapons but said that Israel must prioritize helping people in great need of humanitarian relief. When asked how many journalists had died in Gaza and why foreign journalists were unable to enter the region, Mr. Blinken replied that “as a matter of principle” journalists should have access wherever there is conflict so “the world can have knowledge”.
He said the issue was something “we bring up in every instance”. Later, the UN human rights chief stressed that the catastrophic hunger in Gaza was “human-made and… entirely preventable”. Volker Türk strongly blamed what he described as Israel’s “extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods, displacement of most of the population, as well as the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure”.
The limitations, he cautioned, “may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime”. According to Israel’s diplomatic representation to the UN in Geneva, Mr. Türk is attempting to hold Israel accountable for the Gaza catastrophe and “completely absolve the responsibility of the UN and Hamas”. “Israel is doing everything it can to flood Gaza with aid, including by land air, and sea,” it insisted.
relief workers dispute this, claiming that a significant portion of the issue in northern Gaza stems from a breakdown in security surrounding relief convoys following the Israeli targeting of the police accompanying them. Israel claims that since its military is eliminating Hamas, police have been targeted. However, the US has questioned this, claiming that such targeting is ineffective and prevents help from being distributed. Following his denial of entry into Gaza, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, has been urged by the US State Department to allow Israel to allow him admission.
UNRWA has previously refuted Israel’s accusations that it supports Hamas. However, nine out of the twelve workers who were charged in an Israeli document with being involved in the October 7 assaults were let go in January.
Israel has received warnings from the US that continuing its attack in Rafah would be a “mistake.” Additionally, US officials declared that Mr. Blinken would be making his most recent visit to the area following Hamas’s strikes on Israel on October 7 and the outbreak of the Gaza War.
It comes in the absence of any progress on the truce for the agreement between Israel and Hamas to free their hostages. After meeting with the Saudi officials in Jeddah, he will move on to Cairo to meet with the Egyptian authorities. A major component of the negotiations will be Arab backing for a post-conflict strategy to protect and administer Gaza. The Palestinian Authority, which was established after the Oslo Peace Accords but lost its hold on Gaza to Hamas following elections and conflict 17 years ago, is the organization that the Americans want in charge of the region.
Nonetheless, one of the main grounds of contention over any purported “day after plan” for Gaza is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently opposed the notion of PA regulation there. When asked if an agreed-upon post-war strategy for Gaza could only proceed with a new Israeli leader, Mr. Blinken remained silent. More than a million Gazan people are taking refuge in the southern border town of Rafah after US President Joe Biden informed Mr. Netanyahu that his intention to continue the attack there would be a “mistake.” They also talked about the idea of sending an Israeli delegation to Washington the next week to discuss the Rafah plan as well as a fresh strategy for hitting Hamas there short of a large-scale ground assault, during their first talk in more than a month.
