The director of the Government Information Office in Gaza, Ismail Al-Thawabta, said in statements to the Al-Jazeera network that the residents of the Gaza Strip entered a stage of famine.

Al-Thawabta accused the Israeli Army of pursuing a deliberate policy to starve the population in the north of the Strip, where it is almost impossible to receive humanitarian aid due to the Israeli blockade and attacks.

The official called on the World Food Program (WFP) to retract the decision it took on Tuesday to stop food deliveries to the northern region “until conditions are met that may allow safe distribution.” “Such a decision was not taken lightly, as we know more people are at risk of starvation, but security must be ensured to deliver critical food aid,” the organization said in a statement.

The institution recalled that deliveries resumed on Sunday after a three-week standstill, following the Israeli attack on a truck loaded with vital products and due to the absence of a functioning humanitarian notification system.

That day the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, and on Monday another convoy faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order, the entity stressed.

Last December, a rating report compiled by 15 agencies, including the WFP, warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza by May unless conditions there improve decisively.

The deputy director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Beth Bechdol, warned a week ago about the famine in Gaza, and stated that regarding the classifications of emergency, crisis, and catastrophe, it can be considered that “Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants fall into these three categories.”

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