Full-blown famine grips Gaza amid war: NGO

Israel is deliberately starving 2 million people — bombing bakeries, blocking food, and cutting off water. This is not a crisis. It’s genocide, PNGO said on Monday.

According to PNGO, 91% of Gaza’s population faces crisis-level food insecurity. 345,000 people are in Phase 5 — the most extreme stage of famine. 60,000 children urgently need treatment for malnutrition.

And 92% of children under 2 and breastfeeding mothers aren’t getting the nutrition they need. This means permanent, irreversible damage to an entire generation, the PNGO noted.

This is not a natural disaster. It’s a policy of starvation — by design, it added.

Bakeries have been shut down. Food and medicine warehouses were bombed. Aid blocked at the border. Water desalination plant destroyed, the PNGO said.

Even polio vaccines and nutritional supplements are being prevented from entering, it stated.

“The Israeli apartheid regime is intentionally preventing the entry of food, medicine, and fuel,” PNGO added.

This is the textbook definition of genocide — and it’s being backed, funded and supported by the US, it stated.

PNGO has demanded the following:

• Gaza be declared a famine zone
• Sanctions on Israel
• Safe corridors for aid
• Suspension of all arms transfers — especially from the US and EU
• War crimes prosecutions for Israeli leaders

The Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, has killed approximately 50,983 Palestinians, injured another 116,274, and displaced almost 2.2 million people.

Israel has also imposed a blockade on free movement, which has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.