WFP deputy warns Gaza famine spreading, says aid deliveries remain constrained

Carl Skow, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme, told reporters in New York that starvation is spreading across Gaza, that child malnutrition is surging and that humanitarian access and operating conditions for relief agencies remain highly constrained. “It's worse than I've ever seen it before,” Skow said, adding both needs and constraints are at historic highs.

Skow said a recent IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) report indicated the entire population is acutely food insecure and that roughly 500,000 people were classified in the starvation category weeks ago; he said the situation has not improved since that assessment. He cited UNICEF figures showing about 90,000 children in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition and said “1 in 3 people in Gaza go for days without eating.”

Those figures, Skow said, illustrate why WFP is pressing for significantly larger and more predictable access. He said during an earlier period after a partial lifting of movement restrictions WFP managed only about 20–30 trucks per day — “far from enough” — and that when he was on the ground last week the price of a kilogram of wheat flour was over $25. He told reporters that WFP has enough food at border staging areas to feed Gaza’s population for about two…