The head of the World Food Program says parts of the Gaza Strip are suffering from a "massive famine" that is spreading across the territory after nearly seven months of war that has made the delivery of aid extremely difficult.
"There's a famine - a total famine in the North, and it's moving south," program director Cindy McCain said in excerpts released Friday evening from an interview with "Meet The Press."
Ms. McCain is the second high-ranking American figure to lead U.S. government or United Nations aid efforts to declare that there is a famine in northern Gaza, although her statements do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.
It does not explain why there was no official declaration of famine. But she said her assessment was “based on what we saw and what we witnessed on the ground.”
The hunger crisis is most acute in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, a largely lawless and gang-infested area over which the Israeli military exercises little or no control. In recent weeks, as Israel faces growing global pressure to improve difficult conditions there, more aid has flowed to the devastated region.
On the diplomatic level, negotiations resumed on Saturday in Cairo with the aim of reaching a ceasefire and an agreement to free the Israeli and Palestinian hostages. The Palestinian armed group said a delegation of Hamas leaders had visited the Egyptian capital.
In recent days, Israel and the mediators in the negotiations - Egypt, Qatar and the United States - have awaited Hamas' response to the latest ceasefire proposal, with Hamas indicating it is open to discuss the offer to which Israel accepted. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said U.S. officials were waiting to see if Hamas "could take a 'yes' answer on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages."
“The only thing standing against the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said at the McCain Institute in Arizona. “So we can’t wait to see what they do.”
Hossam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said in a text message that the movement's representatives came to Cairo "with great positivity" toward the proposed deal. “If there is no deal, it will only be because of Netanyahu,” he said, referring to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister.
For weeks, Netanyahu has promised that Israeli forces would invade Rafah, where much of Hamas's remaining military forces would be assembled alongside some of its leaders. The plan has drawn widespread criticism, including from the Biden administration, due to concerns about the safety of more than a million displaced people from Gaza who have sought shelter there.
On Saturday, Israel did not send a delegation to Cairo to participate in indirect negotiations with Hamas officials, as Israeli officials had done in previous rounds of talks, according to two Israeli officials who spoke under the guise of anonymity, in accordance with diplomatic protocol. .
An Israeli official said that even if Hamas announced to Cairo that it accepted the proposed deal, a truce was unlikely to be imminent. The official added that Hamas' approval will be followed by intense negotiations to reach the precise details of the ceasefire, and that those talks are likely to be long and difficult.
The first U.S. official to say there was a famine in Gaza during the conflict was Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who made her comments in testimony before Congress this month. last.
Ms. McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, was named by President Biden as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food and agriculture agencies in 2021 and last year became head of the World Food Program, a UN agency.
A famine is officially declared by a United Nations agency, the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC), and the government of the country in which the famine occurs. It is unclear which local authority might have the power to do this in Gaza. It is rare for advertisements to rely on specific rates of hunger, malnutrition and mortality over short periods of time. But for aid organizations, famine elevates a crisis above competing disasters and helps them raise funds to respond.
Gaza is suffering from what experts describe as a serious man-made food crisis. Israeli bombing and restrictions on the area have made the delivery of aid extremely difficult. The amount of aid entering Gaza has increased recently, but aid groups say it is completely insufficient.
During the first three weeks of the war, Israel maintained what it called a "total blockade" of Gaza, with Defense Minister Yoav Galant saying that "no electricity, no food, no water , nor fuel” would be allowed in the strip. The Israeli army also destroyed Gaza's port, restricted fishing and bombed many farms in the Strip.
Israel eventually eased the blockade but established a rigorous inspection process that it says is necessary to ensure weapons and other supplies do not fall into the hands of Hamas. Aid groups and foreign diplomats said inspections created bottlenecks and accused Israel of arbitrarily rejecting aid, including water filters, solar lamps and medical kits containing scissors, on flimsy grounds .
The use of starvation as a weapon against civilians constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime within the meaning of the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court Treaty or the ICC.
Israeli and foreign officials told the New York Times last week that they feared the ICC would do just that. He was preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials – including possible accusations that they blocked the delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza. (They also said they believed the court was considering arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, which could be issued simultaneously.)
Israel has previously strongly denied imposing restrictions on aid, accusing the United Nations of failing to distribute aid appropriately and Hamas of looting supplies. U.S. and U.N. officials have said there is no evidence of this, except for a shipment seized by Hamas earlier this week, which is now being recovered.
Regardless of how this problem is resolved, there is no doubt that the situation continues to threaten the lives of many Gazans, particularly those of children who suffer from illnesses that make them particularly vulnerable. As of April 17, according to local health authorities, at least 28 children under the age of 12 had died of malnutrition or related causes in Gaza hospitals, including 12 children as young as one month old. Authorities believe that many deaths outside hospitals have not been recorded.
There have been some improvements in aid flows in recent weeks, and on Wednesday Israel reopened the Erez border crossing, allowing some aid to enter directly into northern Gaza.
Fatima Idama, 36, a resident of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, said conditions in her neighborhood remain difficult. She added that many products, such as meat, are unavailable or sold at exorbitant prices.
But Ms. Edamah said flour, canned goods and other products began to flow much more freely and their costs fell sharply. “Before there was nothing, people were grinding pet food,” she explained. “Now we have food.”
However, foreign officials and aid agencies say more needs to be done.
“This is real and important progress, but more needs to be done,” Blinken told reporters this week after visiting an aid depot in Jordan.