Canada warns of ‘catastrophic’ humanitarian conditions in Gaza

OTTAWA (Reuters): Canada’s foreign minister on Thursday expressed deep concern about “catastrophic” humanitarian conditions across Gaza and warned about “the life-threatening levels of acute malnutrition.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly cited a Nov. 8 report by the Famine Review Committee that found a strong likelihood, opens new tab that famine is occurring or imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip. The committee has previously found that 133,000 people in Gaza were facing catastrophic food insecurity.

“This means that civilians – men, women and children – are dying because of the lack of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza,” she said in a joint statement with International Development Minister Ahmend Hussen.

The statement said not enough aid is reaching those who rely on it for survival and humanitarian agencies and humanitarian workers continue to face preventable impediments.

Israel must abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law and provide a significant and sustained increase to humanitarian assistance for the civilian population, it added.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year, Palestinian health officials say, and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble, where more than 2 million Gazans are seeking shelter in makeshift tents and facing shortages of food and medicines.