GENEVA, March 28. /TASS/. World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned about looming hunger in the Gaza Strip because of Israel’s continuing operation.

"Famine looms in Gaza amid ongoing bombardment," he wrote on his X (formerly known as Twitter) account. "Starvation and illness continue ravaging the population. Immediate, concerted action is needed now. This means: allowing and accelerating delivery of food and other nutrition sources, and medicines," protecting hospitals so that medics could take care of patients suffering from famine, illnesses and injuries.

He called for an immediate ceasefire and insisted that humanitarian organizations be given access to the Palestinian enclave.

Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini said on March 24 that Israel would no longer let UNRWA humanitarian convoys the into the northern Gaza Strip. According to Lazzarini, "the Israeli Authorities informed the UN that they will no longer approve any UNRWA food convoys" to northern Gaza.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.

According to the latest data from the Gaza health ministry, as many as 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 75,000 have been wounded since the beginning of Israel’s aggression.