Communications down for a second day in Gaza, causing halt to humanitarian supplies

Communications systems in the Gaza Strip are down for a second day today with no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, causing aid agencies to halt cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies.

Gaza is now receiving only 10 percent of its needed food supplies daily, and dehydration and malnutrition are growing with nearly all of the 2.3 million people in the territory needing food, says Abeer Etefa, a Mideast regional spokeswoman for the United Nations’ World Food Program.

“People are facing the immediate possibility of starvation,” she said from Cairo.

With few trucks entering Gaza and no fuel to distribute the food “there is no way to meet the current hunger needs,” she said Thursday.

“The existing food systems in Gaza are basically collapsing.”