Death by Starvation Continues in Gaza

Mass starvation is spreading in Gaza. Humanitarian agencies are warning of “new and astonishing levels of desperation”.
More than 100 Palestinians have starved to death over the past 21 months - most since March when Israel reinstated its total blockade. Most of those who died were children.
The World Food Programme says 90,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Palestine.

Bushra Khalidi, policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory at UK charity Oxfam, has denounced governments around the world for failing to stop Israel’s starvation policy in war-battered Gaza.

She condemned the takeover of aid distribution by the Israel-US military contractor group GHF from UN-led agencies, which has “turned food into a deadly trap” in the Strip.

“This is not a humanitarian failure, this is a deliberate policy. There are massacres every single day and they don’t address any needs that Palestinians in Gaza need right now,” Khalidi told Al Jazeera.
The international community needs to act immediately to halt Israel’s war and ramp up the entry of vast amounts of humanitarian relief, she said.

“A civilian population of two million people are dying slowly before the world’s eyes and nobody does a thing … States and governments – stop waiting. There’s no time left. If you are a government that claims to follow human rights, you need to act now. We are begging you.”

More than one thousand people have been killed while trying to access food in GHF sites. Most of them have been shot by Israeli forces that fired on the crowds. The British charity, Oxfam, has been following the struggles of one man, who was injured in one such attack.

This report has been supplied to al Jazeera by the charity.