WASHINGTON — Palestine’s UN envoy Riyad Mansour has accused Israel of deliberately using starvation as a weapon in Gaza by systematically blocking humanitarian aid and manipulating its distribution.
“Israel has been openly and brazenly blocking humanitarian aid for over two months now. This is engineered starvation,” Mansour told a UN Security Council.
He warned that the Israeli plan for distributing humanitarian aid is “just a continuation of the weaponisation of aid” and stressed that it is “rejected by all UN agencies and all humanitarian organisations.”
“That plan has been rejected…as it is just a continuation of the weaponisation of aid by driving desperate civilians and humanitarians into militarised zones to receive or distribute aid at the peril of their lives, by counting calories, by denying aid to many, often the most vulnerable, and by further subjugating the population and entrenching forcible displacement,” he said.
Washington moves to tackle Gaza’s imminent famine crisis
The US envoy to the United Nations, Dorothy Shea, has said that Washington has sent senior officials to Israel to work on the modalities of Gaza humanitarian foundation aid deliveries.
The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with Israel’s deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, including food, in the ongoing blockade.
According to the WHO, the entire 2.1 million population of Gaza is facing prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness, and death.
On Monday, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted the dire situation in Gaza, stating that despite food and medicines being mere minutes away across the border, people are already starving, sick, and dying.
Israel forcing Palestinians to demolish their own homes
Israeli authorities have forced a Palestinian man to demolish his home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal al-Mukaber.
The Jerusalem Governorate reported that the Israeli municipality forced a Palestinian to demolish his home on Tuesday, which housed eight people and was built in 2016.
Under the pretext of building “without a permit,” which is rarely granted to Palestinians in the occupied city, the Israeli municipality has been demolishing or forcing Palestinians to demolish their own houses as part of a policy.
Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem find themselves compelled to tear down their homes after receiving a demolition order to avoid paying exorbitant costs to the Israeli municipality if it carries out the demolition. — Agencies
