JAKARTA - The entire population of the Gaza Strip is experiencing "acute food cloud at a severe level," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, underscoring the importance of increasing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinian enclaves.
"According to the most respected measure in this regard, 100 percent of the population in Gaza is at a severe level of acute food vulnerability," Foreign Minister Blinken said at a press conference in the Philippines during an official visit. this is the first time the entire population has been classified like this," he said.
Foreign Minister Blinken's remarks were delivered ahead of his visit to the Middle East, this time to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to discuss efforts to secure a hostage-taking and temporary ceasefire deal in Gaza, as well as increase aid deliveries.
This will be Foreign Minister Blinken's sixth trip to the Middle East since the war erupted in Gaza on October 7 last year.
Earlier, the United Nations had warned for weeks that hunger would occur in Gaza, with aid agencies reporting great difficulties in gaining access to the region, particularly the northern part.
Yesterday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said Israel sparked hunger in the Gaza Strip and used hunger as a weapons of war, a charge Israeli foreign ministers have denied.
"In Gaza we are no longer on the verge of starvation, we are in a state of hunger that has an impact on thousands of people," Borrell said at the opening of a humanitarian aid conference for Gaza in Brussels, Belgium.
"This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapons of war. Israel is triggering starvation," Borrell criticized.
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Israel denies the allegations, with Israeli Foreign Minister Katz saying Israel is allowing aid to enter Gaza, rejecting EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell's claim that it deliberately starving Gazans.
"Israel allows large amounts of humanitarian aid to Gaza by land, air, and sea for anyone willing to help," wrote Foreign Minister Katz in X.
It is known, several countries in the world have criticized Israel for rising hunger in the region, including Egypt and Iraq.
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