The UN independent investigator on the right to food insisted Israel is still conducting “a starvation campaign” in Gaza, despite its delivery of over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food to the territory since it launched its military operation a year ago.
Michael Fakhri told reporters Friday that food is not calories and Palestinians have not gotten adequate food or calories.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, recently warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.
Fakhri said: “Based on a year-long starvation campaign and a 24-year blockade and siege, allowing a few more trucks to enter in now does not actually address the humanitarian needs.”
“But most importantly, what Israel is saying contradicts everything every humanitarian organization is saying now, and has been saying,” he said.
Fakhri said humanitarian officials call Israel’s rules on what is allowed into Gaza “opaque and absurd.”
Convoys that make it through are often shot at and targeted by Israeli forces despite coordination with Israeli authorities, he said. “And then even if those convoys get past that, civilians seeking aid have been shot at and killed several times.”
Israel’s UN Mission did not respond to a request for comment on Fakhri’s press conference.
