Gaza is facing ‘extreme risk of famine’: Red Crescent Society
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says the nutritional situation in Gaza is now “even more dire than in the past 19 months.”
The PRCS said on Monday that essential food supplies had “run out in both markets and distribution centers.”
“The nutritional front, the population is facing once again at extreme risk of famine”, the PRCS said in its latest situation update.
“There is an inability to meet even the minimum daily needs of over a million displaced people,” it said.
The Red Crescent’s food stocks allocated for displaced people are now “completely depleted.”
“Limited quantities of legumes” are being “distributed to community kitchens to cover some of the basic needs of displaced individuals,” the PRCS said.
Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, which has so far killed at least 52,535 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 118,491 others.
The Tel Aviv regime accepted longstanding negotiation terms by the Hamas resistance group under a Gaza ceasefire, which began on January 19.
However, Israel unilaterally abandoned the truce on March 2, cutting off humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. It also resumed its deadly bombing campaign and redeployed troops to the blockaded territory.
The Israeli regime’s prime minister said on Monday that he was going to launch a new military offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In a Hebrew-language video message on X, Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Security Cabinet-approved plan to expand the Gaza offensive.
He said that Gaza’s Palestinian population “will be moved, for its own protection.”
Netanyahu also said Israeli soldiers would not go into Gaza, launch raids and then retreat. “The intention is the opposite of that,” he said.
Netanyahu’s remarks come after his cabinet approved plans to expand the Gaza offensive and take over aid deliveries to the starving strip.
The Netanyahu cabinet unanimously approved plans to call up reservists and put the Israeli military in charge of food and other vital supplies to the 2.3 million people suffering under its blockade of the Palestinian territory.
The expanded offensive “could go as far as seizing the entire enclave”, the Reuters news agency reported.
“The plan will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection,” a source told the AFP news agency.
