UN: Gaza is Hungriest Place on Earth, All Its People at Risk of Famine

By Staff, Agencies

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the territory was “the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine. One hundred per cent of the population at risk of famine,” he said on Friday.

“Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth," he added.

Laerke detailed the difficulties faced by the UN in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Nine hundred trucks of humanitarian aid had been authorized by "Israel" to enter the strip since the blockade was partially lifted, but so far only 600 had been off-loaded on the Gaza side of the border, and a smaller number of shipments had then been picked up for distribution within the territory because of security considerations, he said.

Laerke said the mission to deliver aid was “in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history”.

Daniel Meron, "Israel’s" UN ambassador, rejected the claim, saying, “In a desperate effort to remain relevant, they lambast the best efforts of 'Israel' and its partners to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilian population. UN feeds Hamas, we make sure aid gets to those in need,” he wrote on X.

In a reflection of the increasingly dire conditions inside the territory, a UN spokesperson said late on Friday that “armed individuals” had raided a warehouse at a field hospital in Deir al-Balah, “looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines, nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children”.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private logistics group backed by the US and endorsed by "Israel", expanded its food distribution to a third site on Thursday.

Laerke said that by having people collect aid rather than delivering it to them where they are, they become a target for looters once they leave the site. “It is so desperate and tragic and frustrating, and wildly unhumanitarian,” he said.