'Far too late': Palestinians despair after UN declares famine in Gaza
GAZA CITY- Agence France-Presse
Desperate Palestinians clutching pots and plastic buckets have scrambled for rice at a charity kitchen in Gaza City, after the United Nations declared a famine in the war-battered territory.
AFP footage from Gaza's largest city, which Israel plans to seize as part of an expanded military offensive, showed women and young children among the chaotic jostle of dozens clamoring and shouting for food.
One young boy used his hands to scrape a few leftover grains from the inside of a cooking vat. Another young girl sat on the edge of a tent and scooped rice from a plastic bag on the ground.
"We have no home left, no food, no income... so we are forced to turn to charity kitchens, but they do not satisfy our hunger," said Yousef Hamad, 58, who was displaced from the northern city of Beit Hanoun.
Further south at a charity kitchen in Deir el-Balah, 34-year-old Umm Mohammad said the U.N.'s declaration of a famine had come "far too late.”
The children are "staggering from dizziness, unable to wake up because of the lack of food and water," she said.
The U.N. officially declared a famine in Gaza on Aug. 22, blaming the "systematic obstruction" of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.
The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said famine was affecting 500,000 people in Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the report as "an outright lie.”
The spokesman for Gaza's civil defense agency, Mahmud Bassal, called the situation in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighborhoods "absolutely catastrophic,” describing the "complete levelling of entire residential blocks.”
"We are trapped here, living in fear, with nowhere to go. There's no safety anywhere in Gaza. Movement now leads to death," said Ahmad Jundiyeh, 35, who was displaced to the northern outskirts of Zeitoun.
"We constantly hear the sound of bombing... we hear fighter jets, artillery shelling and even drone explosions," he told AFP by telephone.
"We're extremely afraid -- it feels like the end is near."
Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed on Aug. 22 that Israel would destroy Gaza City as it has other parts of the territory if Hamas did not agree to disarm, release all remaining hostages in the territory and end the war on Israel's terms.
Residents of Gaza City said the Israeli strikes targeting the area had been relentless for days
