People dying from lack of aid every day in Gaza: WFP official

Ross Smith, director of emergency preparedness and response, briefed journalists in New York in the wake of a deadly incident on Sunday in which dozens of civilians were killed and injured while waiting to access food as a WFP convoy was entering northern Gaza.

“Yesterday’s incident is one of the greatest tragedies we’ve seen for our operations in Gaza and elsewhere while we’re trying to work,” he said, speaking from Rome.

“And it’s completely avoidable, and it’s an absolute tragedy,” he added.

Famine conditions and malnutrition

Gaza’s population stands at roughly 2.1 million and earlier this year, food security experts warned that one in five people faces starvation.

Mr. Smith said WFP assessments show that a quarter of the population is facing famine-like conditions. Almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.

Pointing to reports, he said “people are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance every day, and we are seeing this escalate day by day.” 

He stressed that food assistance, and humanitarian assistance more broadly, are “the only solution at the moment” for Gaza.

Minimum operating conditions

Mr. Smith said humanitarians have a set of minimum operating conditions that need to be in place for them to work effectively.

These include crossing points into Gaza, “proper routing” inside the enclave so that teams can move independently, and the entry of more than 100 trucks of aid a day.

“We also need to have no armed actors near food distribution points, near our convoys, and near the movement of those convoys from one place to another,” he continued, while underscoring the need to reach people where they are and not in otherwise predetermined locations.

“And I would say above all that we have had agreements in principle on these things, but we have not had adherence to these in practice in Gaza itself. And this is really where the breakdown is, and it’s where we see incidents like (yesterday) take place,” he said.

Ceasefire now

Mr. Smith also highlighted the critical need for a ceasefire “so that we can move effectively.”

In response to a journalist’s question, he said WFP moved more than 200 trucks of assistance per day into Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year. Since mid-May, it has been able to move less than 10 per cent of what is needed.

He said the UN agency has enough stocks pre-positioned outside Gaza to supply the entire population for two months “if we can get a ceasefire and if we can move.”