World Food Programme director: North Gaza in ‘full-blown famine’; COGAT: ‘Assertion is incorrect’

The chief of the United Nations’ food program warns of a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza and reiterates calls for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, an assertion sharply rebuffed by Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
“There is famine, full-blown famine in the north and it’s moving its way south,” Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, says in an excerpt of a Friday interview with NBC News.
“What we are asking for and what we’ve continually asked for is a ceasefire and the ability to have unfettered access to get in safe… into Gaza — various ports, various gate crossings,” McCain says.
In response, a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a Defense Ministry body, tells The Times of Israel that the “assertion is incorrect.”
“In recent months, the State of Israel has increased its humanitarian effort to flood the Gaza Strip with food, medical equipment and equipment for tents,” the spokesperson says.
“In recent weeks, approximately a hundred trucks loaded with humanitarian equipment, mainly food, have been sent daily to the northern Gaza Strip in coordination with the international community, including the UN organizations active in Gaza,” COGAT says, adding that “the number of aid trucks sent to the north of the Gaza Strip relative to the population is higher than the number of aid trucks sent to the south of the Gaza Strip.”
“In addition, in recent weeks, Israel has been leading other major efforts that have significantly improved the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip — in both the north and the south,” COGAT says.
“In light of this, as part of the continuous engagement between Israeli authorities and with the UN representatives in the region, including the WFP organization, the international interlocutors stated ‘that the humanitarian situation is improving, there is a variety of goods in warehouses and markets in the north,'” the statement says.
“And in light of the improved situation, they ask to ‘reduce the extent of goods transported to the northern Gaza Strip’ since the quantities flowing are too high relative to the population,” COGAT says.