U.N. official warns that famine in northern Gaza is already ‘full-blown’
WASHINGTON — A top U.N. official has warned that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory.
Cindy McCain, the American director of the United Nations World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.
“It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday. “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
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She said a cease-fire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes were essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which controls entrance into Gaza and says it is beginning to allow in more food and other humanitarian aid through land crossings.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground attacks, according to Gaza’s local health officials. The war has caused widespread destruction in Gaza and plunged the territory into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
The war erupted on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
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Israeli strikes early Saturday on Gaza killed at least six people. Three bodies were recovered from the rubble of a building in Rafah and taken to Yousef Al Najjar hospital. A strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza also killed three people, according to hospital officials.
On Saturday, a delegation of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Cairo as Egyptian state media reported “noticeable progress” in cease-fire talks with Israel, though an Israeli official downplayed the prospects for a full end to the war in Gaza.
People across Gaza sent thanks to students protesting on U.S. campuses against Israel; Israeli leaders characterized the demonstrators as ‘pro-Palestinian mobs.’
Egyptian and American mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days but chances for a cease-fire deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
Egyptian state Al Qahera news said Saturday that a consensus has been reached over many of the disputed points but did not elaborate. Hamas has called for a complete end to the war and withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, played down the prospects for a full end to the war. The official said Israel was committed to the Rafah invasion and told the Associated Press that it will not agree in any circumstance to end the war as part of a deal to release hostages.
The proposal that Egyptian mediators had put to Hamas sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate, six-week cease-fire and partial release of Israeli hostages, and would include some sort of Israeli pullout. The initial stage would last for 40 days. Hamas would start by releasing female civilian hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
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