The United Nations World Food Program warned on Monday that thousands of children would die of starvation if program crews were unable to enter northern Gaza.

The chief economist at the Food Program, Arif Hussein, said that children are dying of hunger in the Gaza Strip, especially in the north, adding that the program is on the verge of declaring famine in northern Gaza.

During a video conference interview with journalists at the United Nations about the Integrated Interim Classification for Food Security (IPC) report, Hussein said, “For humanitarian relief workers, famine means declaring our collective failure, and it means that we have failed and people and children have died.” "Hunger."

Hussein stressed that, therefore, the necessary measures must be taken before famine occurs, stressing that children are dying of hunger throughout Gaza, “and if we are not able to enter northern Gaza, not 20-30 children will die, but thousands of them.. We cannot allow that.” .

The Integrated Interim Classification for Food Security (IPC) report, prepared by United Nations institutions, showed that 70 percent of the population of the northern Gaza Strip faces catastrophic hunger.

Israel restricts humanitarian aid access to Gaza, where about 2.3 million Palestinians live, causing a scarcity of food, water, medicine and fuel supplies and creating a famine that has claimed the lives of children and the elderly, in light of the presence of about two million displaced people in the Strip, which has been under siege for 17 years.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, a humanitarian catastrophe and massive infrastructure destruction, which led to Tel Aviv appearing before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide.