CAIRO, August 28. /TASS/. At least 121 children have recently died of starvation in the Gaza Strip, the enclave's Health Ministry said on Telegram. According to the ministry, the total number of residents of the sector who have died from malnutrition has risen to 317, with four deaths recorded in the past day alone.
On August 22, experts from the UN-supported food security monitoring mechanism, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), for the first time officially described the situation in the Gaza region in the north of the Palestinian enclave as famine. On the same day, the office of the head of the government of the Jewish state Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel does not starve the enclave, but prevents famine in Gaza. It said the Palestinian Hamas movement "systematically steals humanitarian aid and turns it into a weapon of war," while Israel addressed the problem of supply disruptions by dropping aid from the air, as well as delivering humanitarian supplies by sea and via safe routes.
On August 26, Olga Cherevko, a representative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called the famine situation in the Gaza Strip completely man-made, adding that it could have been prevented.