UN Chief urges Israel to ensure "complete and unfettered access" for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza

He called on the international community to support the UN's humanitarian efforts in Gaza. He stated that 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger.

In a video posted on X, Antonio Guterres said, "I call on the Israeli authorities to ensure complete and unfettered access for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza and for the international community to fully support our humanitarian efforts. We must act now to prevent the unthinkable, the unacceptable and the unjustifiable."

While sharing the video on X, Guterres wrote, "Famine in the northern part of Gaza is imminent. 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger - the highest number of people ever recorded -anywhere, anytime. This is an entirely manmade disaster. And it can - and must - be halted."

Guterres' statement comes amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Israel launched the counter-offensive operation against Hamas on October 7.

Earlier on Monday, the World Food Programme (WFP) released a statement on their Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report about food security in the Gaza Strip, CNN reported. According to the report, 88 per cent of Gaza's entire population faces "emergency or worse" food insecurity and warned that famine in northern Gaza is "imminent."

WFP Director Cindy McCain said, "People in Gaza are starving to death right now." McCain stated, "The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying."

The IPC report, written by a group of NGOs, governments and UN agencies, has warned that "between mid-March and mid-July, in the most likely scenario and under the assumption of an escalation of the conflict including a ground offensive in Rafah, half of the population of the Gaza Strip (1.11 million people) is expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5)."

According to the report, "famine is expected to arrive between now and May," for the 300,000 people that remain trapped in Northern Gaza and one in three children in Gaza below the age of two are "acutely malnourished," CNN reported.

As per the report, Southern Gaza is slowly nearing famine and the region may reach famine conditions by July, CNN reported. The report said that the nearing famine could be paused if aid organisations are given access to the Gaza Strip to provide food, water and other nutritional products to people, and that "a humanitarian ceasefire is necessary," for this to occur. (ANI)