Israel blocking 83 percent of food aid from reaching Gaza: Aid groups

The amount of aid being blocked by Israel has increased substantially from 2023, when just 34 percent of food aid was being blocked, the organisations announced in the statement.

Amjad Al Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) said in the statement that 100 percent of Gaza’s population is now dependent on aid and the shortages mean people are starving.

“We are overwhelmed [with] these needs and [these] urgent requirements”, Al Shawa added.

The aid organisations that released the statement included Save the Children, ActionAid, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief.

Israel has continued its military onslaught against the besieged enclave following an attack on October 7 last year by Hamas, despite a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

The offensive has resulted in more than 41,200 Palestinian deaths, mostly women and children, and over 95,400 injuries, according to local health authorities.

The military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless, at risk of famine and prone to disease.

Israel also faces accusations of genocide for its actions in the enclave at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

After 11 months of Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, top United Nations experts have warned that Israel is engaged in a “targeted starvation campaign” in the besieged enclave.

Dozens of children have died of malnutrition since the war began in October, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israeli attacks have also killed hundreds of aid workers in Gaza.

The World Food Program (WFP) has sounded the alarm that 2.2 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip are still in “urgent” need of food aid after 11 months of war.

According to stats released by the WFP, 96 percent of the population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity, with 2.15 million people at crisis levels of hunger or worse, as the Israeli regime is using famine as a weapon of war.

Furthermore, the WFP says almost half a million people in Gaza are in “catastrophic conditions”.