Two million people are starving in the Gaza Strip, with the deliberate blocking of aid driving up the risk of famine, the World Health Organization chief warned Monday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO and other UN agencies stood ready to deliver aid into the Palestinian territory -- if and when it is allowed to enter.
"Two months into the latest blockade, two million people are starving," Tedros said, while 160,000 metric tonnes of food "is blocked at the border just minutes away."
"The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, including food, in the ongoing blockade."
Speaking at the opening of the annual World Health Assembly, Tedros said that increasing hostilities, evacuation orders, shrinking humanitarian space and the Gaza aid blockade were "driving an influx of casualties to a health system that is already on its knees."
"People are dying from preventable diseases as medicines wait at the border, while attacks on hospitals deny people care, and deter them from seeking it," he said.
Tedros said that since November 2023, the WHO had supported medical evacuations of more than 7,300 patients, including 617 cancer patients, from the Gaza Strip.
However, more than 10,000 patients still needed medical evacuation out of Gaza, he added.
"We ask member states to accept more patients, and we ask Israel to allow these evacuations, and to allow urgently-needed food and medicine to enter," said Tedros.
"WHO stands ready, with our UN partners, to move rapidly to deliver it if and when it is allowed to enter.
"I hope peace will prevail that can transcend generations. War is not the solution."
Israel has claimed its blockade since March 2 was aimed at "forcing concessions" from the Palestinian resistence group Hamas.
Israel must prevent Gaza famine for 'diplomatic reasons': Netanyahu
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was necessary for Israel to prevent a famine in Gaza for "diplomatic reasons", after his government announced it would allow limited food aid into the territory.
The premier's defence of the decision to at least partially lift a more than two-month aid blockade followed criticism from far-right members of his coalition who opposed the move.
"We must not let the population (of Gaza) sink into famine, both for practical and diplomatic reasons," Netanyahu said in a video posted to his Telegram channel, adding that even friends of Israel would not tolerate "images of mass starvation".
Israel has said its blockade since March 2 was aimed at forcing concessions from the Palestinian militant group.
But it came under increasing international pressure to restore aid to Gaza, where UN agencies have warned of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.
The territory was at "critical risk of famine", with 22 percent of the population facing an imminent humanitarian "catastrophe", the UN- and NGO-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said this month.
Neytanyahu on Monday shrugged off criticism of the aid resumption as "natural", calling the decision "difficult, but necessary."
