‘Pockets of famine’: EU humanitarian chief urges Israel to boost land access to Gaza

The European Union’s top humanitarian aid official says airdrops and a maritime corridor won’t be enough to make up for supplies transported by trucks into Gaza.

Janez Lenarcic, the EU’s humanitarian aid and crisis management chief, says land routes are the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get supplies into Gaza.

“There is a risk of famine,” Lenarcic tells reporters. “We already have a very strong and credible indication that there are pockets of famine already in the Gaza Strip.”

The United Nations estimates more than half a million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are on the brink of starvation. UN agencies said earlier this month that child malnutrition levels were “particularly extreme” in the northern part of the enclave, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.