BRUSSELS — Two senior European Union officials say they are “deeply shocked” at an assessment that the entire population of Gaza is at risk of acute food insecurity following over two months of war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught that killed 1,200 people and saw about 240 taken hostage.
“This is a grave development and should be a wake-up call for the whole world to act now to prevent a deadly human catastrophe,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic says in a statement.
“We urgently need continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to avoid a further worsening of an already catastrophic situation,” they say. “The lack of access to basic staples is creating a situation of famine.”
An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification assessment released Thursday said that “hostilities, including bombardment, ground operations and besiegement of the entire population have caused catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity across the Gaza Strip.”
Just over two million people live in Gaza. About 85% of them are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes.
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