All 2.1 million people in Gaza face hunger and diseases while life-saving supplies sit just beyond the borders, denied entry after nine weeks of a total blockade, Dr Hanan Balkhy, World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told a media briefing on Tuesday.

“The Israeli authorities propose to shut down the UN-led aid distribution system and deliver aid under conditions set by the military, but WHO and the United Nations will not participate in any initiative that violates humanitarian principles. Aid must reach those in need, wherever they are, and the blockade must end,” she added.

The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, while half a million people (one in five) are facing starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released on Monday.

Three quarters of Gaza’s population are at “emergency” or “catastrophic” food deprivation, the worst two levels of IPC’s five level scale of food insecurity and nutritional deprivation.

Since the blockade began on 2 March, 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition. 

If the situation persists, nearly 71 000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months, according to the IPC report.

Dr Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, told the media briefing that 70,000 pregnant and lactating women “are expected to require treatment for acute malnutrition”, with their children facing long-term effects including stunted growth and impaired cognitive development.

The United States announced last week that it supported food aid being channelled to Gaza via a private company un by US contractors, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. 

The Israeli government has said that it supports the plan, but the UN has described it as “weaponizing aid”.

Peeperkorn said that there needed to be an immediate lifting of the blockade but that aid needs to be delivered via “One UN action” in terms of the “global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality”.

“There is a well established and proven humanitarian coordination system led by the UN and its partners that is already in place and must be allowed to function fully to ensure that aid is delivered in a timely and equiptable manner,” said Peeperkorn.

He added that discussions are ongoing between the UN, Israel and the US and he hoped this would result in the resumption of aid as the WHO, World Food Programme and UNICEF were all ready with “massive amounts of food, medicine and water and hygiene supplies”.

US President Donald Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday night for a three-day visit to the Middle East focused on economic partnerships.

Addressing a US-Saudi investment forum on Tuesday evening, Trump said that he hoped Saudi Arabia will rejoin the “Abraham Accords”, agreements the US negotiated between Israel and some Arab countries during his first term. However, Saudi Arabia has ruled out normalising relations with Israel while it is at war with Gaza.

On the eve of Trump’s visit, The Guardian reports that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said that the US “want to bring the hostages home, but Israel is not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it”.

‘Forgotten crises’

Yemen is also facing one of the world’s largest cholera outbreaks with over 270,000 suspected cases and 900 deaths in the past year, said Dr Ahmed Zouiten, acting regional emergency director for WHO EMRO.

Some 19.6 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian aid after 10 years of war.

Recent escalation in violence has threatened the country’s main port and airport, key gateways for humanitarian aid.

WHO only received 8% of $56 million funding it needs to address the crisis in Yemen.

“We need to secure further funding as soon as possible otherwise one mother and six newborns will continue to die every two hours already,” said Zouiten.

Meanwhile, Sudan is facing the world’s worst hunger crisis in terms of scale,with  an estimated 24.6 million people facing food insecurity this month, including 770,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, said Balkhy.

“Some 8.2 million people are losing or at risk of losing access to health because of the shrinking funding for WHO and the health cluster partners. So we need support in Yemen. We need support in other forgotten crisis – Afghanistan and Pakistan, Syria and Somalia.”

Image Credits: WHO.