‘Full-blown famine’ happening in north Gaza

The chief of the United Nations’ food program has warned of a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza and reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

“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 (WFP), said in an interview excerpt published on Saturday.

“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 continued.

The World Food Program is one of the many humanitarian groups trying to get aid into Gaza.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the availability of food in the Gaza Strip has very slightly improved, though the risk of famine continues in the besieged Palestinian territory, which is home to 2.4 million people.

Israel has repeatedly accused the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations of not distributing aid quickly enough.

The aid agencies blame the trickle of essential food into the Palestinian enclave on restrictions and inspections imposed by Israel.

Meanwhile, British-Palestinian doctor and Glasgow University rector Ghassan Abu-Sittah was on Saturday denied access to France where he had been due address a meeting on the medical situation in Gaza.

Abu-Sittah said on X, formerly Twitter, that he had been invited to address French senators about his experience as a doctor in Gaza since the Israeli offensive there but had been blocked at Paris’s Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

“They say the Germans put a 1 year ban on my entry to Europe,” he wrote.

A French police source confirmed to AFP that France could not admit the doctor because it was bound by a German-issued ban on his entry into the visa-free Schengen zone of which both countries are members.

Abu-Sittah had already been stopped from entering Germany last month.