The entire population of Gaza is experiencing “severe levels of acute food insecurity,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, underscoring the urgency of increasing the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
“According to the most respected measure of these things, 100 percent of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That’s the first time an entire population has been so classified,” Blinken tells a press conference in the Philippines where he is on an official visit.
Blinken’s remarks come on the eve of his return to the Middle East — this time to Saudi Arabia and Egypt — to discuss efforts to secure a hostage deal and temporary truce in Gaza, and ramp up aid deliveries.
This will be Blinken’s sixth trip to the Middle East since war erupted in Gaza on October 7, sparked by Hamas’s brutal onslaught.
The United Nations has warned for weeks that a famine is looming in Gaza, with aid agencies reporting huge difficulties gaining access to the territory, particularly the north.
Donors have turned to deliveries by air or sea, but these are not viable alternatives to land deliveries, UN agencies say.
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