19 Gazans die of hunger in a single day as Israel continues to restrict food

TEHRAN (Iran News) Health authorities in Gaza have announced that 19 Palestinians starved to death in 24 hours, as an ongoing Israeli siege of the territory is worsening a hunger crisis there.

The Ministry of Health made the announcement on Sunday, warning that hundreds more people, who are suffering from malnutrition, could die soon.

“We warn that hundreds of people whose bodies have wasted away are at risk of imminent death due to hunger,” Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV network quoted a spokesperson for the ministry.

Israel imposed a crippling siege on March 1 this year, after a ceasefire deal expired and the regime unilaterally withdrew from talks aimed at extending the truce. The siege has remained in place, restricting the entry of food, water, medicine, and other basis supplies into Gaza.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera reported the World Food Program as saying that malnutrition is escalating in Gaza where the hunger crisis continues to deteriorate.

“Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached new levels of desperation. People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment. Nearly one person in three is not eating for days,” the news outlet quoted the WFP.

A similar warning was echoed by Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (P.N.G.O.) in the Gaza Strip.

According to Palestine’s Shehab news agency, he warned about severe hunger in Gaza, describing the situation as a complete humanitarian catastrophe that will lead to the silent death of Palestinians if the Israeli regime continues to prevent the delivery of international aid to the territory.

Shawa said elderly individuals and children are losing their lives due to a lack of food and medicine. Supplies of flour and rice in aid centers and markets have been completely depleted, and people are facing a humanitarian disaster that endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands, he added.

According to the official, the Israeli regime forces Gaza residents to go to its designated aid distribution centers, which are “deadly traps” where civilians are killed while searching for food. This tactic serves the objectives of the Israeli occupiers to empty Gaza, he cautioned.

Over the past weeks, Israel has run its own distribution centers that replace zones operated by the United Nations to deliver food and other supplies to Palestinians in Gaza.

The centers, which are also backed by the United States and have drawn growing international outcry, have become new sites of Palestinian casualties, as Israeli forces open fire on aid seekers gathered there.

The latest such incidents left at least 92 people dead on Sunday. They were killed while trying to get food at the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, as well as at aid distribution centers in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south of the strip.