The Government Media Office in Gaza called on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on Monday evening to reverse its decision to suspend the entry of aid into the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing and to increase the number of trucks in light of the continued policy of starvation used by Israel as a “weapon of war against civilians.”

The office said in a statement: "UNRWA's decision to stop the entry of aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing is a shocking and surprising decision, and we hold the Israeli occupation fully responsible for its repercussions."

On Sunday, UNRWA announced the suspension of receiving aid to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south of the Strip “due to the lack of security” there for months, according to a statement by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

"On November 16, a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs, and on Saturday we tried to bring in a number of food trucks via the same road, all of which were seized," he said in his statement, without mentioning who had seized them.

The government office in Gaza accused Israel of "full coordination with the outlaw and immoral gangs that steal aid at its direct behest to ensure that it does not reach those who deserve it and does not reach our Palestinian people."

On August 11, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted unnamed sources in international relief organizations operating in Gaza as saying that “the Israeli army is allowing gunmen to loot aid trucks in Gaza and extort protection money from their drivers.”

The sources added that "the militants (...) prevented a large portion of the aid shipments entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing."

The newspaper confirmed that "the looting is systematic and the army turns a blind eye to it, and since relief organizations refuse to pay protection money, the aid often ends up in army warehouses."

The Government Media Office in Gaza held the responsibility for UNRWA’s decision on “the Israeli occupation, the American administration, and the countries participating in the genocide, such as Britain, Germany, and France, who support the occupation with weapons to kill civilians from our Palestinian people, and strengthen the occupation with political and diplomatic positions, which helped to continue this aggression against civilians in Gaza.”

It called on UNRWA to "reverse its decision and increase the amount of aid to the Gaza Strip and bring it in through other, safer humanitarian crossings and corridors."

It pointed out the Palestinians' "urgent need for this aid in light of the occupation's use of starvation as a weapon of war against civilians, and the spread of famine in the Gaza Strip, which is rejected by all international and humanitarian laws."

Famine has spread in most areas of the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli siege, especially in the north, following the persistence of genocide and starvation to force citizens to migrate south.

Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest prison in the world, besieging it for the 18th year, and the war of extermination has forced about two million of the Strip’s citizens, numbering about 2.3 million Palestinians, to flee in tragic conditions with a severe and deliberate shortage of food, water and medicine.