UN official: Food supplies in southern Gaza at risk

Supplies of food to southern Gaza are at risk after Israel extended its military operations and those displaced by the offensive there face a public health crisis, a senior United Nations official said on Friday.

While hunger and the risk of famine has been most acute in northern Gaza in recent months, the situation is now deteriorating in the south, said Carl Skau, deputy director of the UN World Food Program.

"We had stocked up before the operation in Rafah so that we had put food into the hands of people, but that's beginning to run out and we don't have the same access that we need, that we used to have," Skau said after a two-day trip to Gaza.

"It's a displacement crisis that brings a protection catastrophe really, that a million or so people who have been pushed out of Rafah are now really crammed into a small space along the beach," said Skau.

"It's hot, the sanitation situation is just terrible. We were driving through rivers of sewage. And it's a public health crisis in the making."

Distribution of aid has been hampered by military operations, delayed Israeli authorizations and increasing lawlessness within Gaza.

Skau said that although more food was reaching northern Gaza, basic healthcare, water and sanitation was needed to "turn the curve in the north on famine completely." Israel needed to let more healthcare goods into Gaza, he said.


Reuters