UN food agency says it cannot regularly access most areas of Gaza where needs are high

By Aysu Bicer

LONDON (AA) - The UN food agency on Thursday called for urgent access to avert famine in the Gaza Strip, saying that most area where “needs are the largest remain regularly inaccessible.”

"To avoid famine, we need safe and regular access to all areas of Gaza where people are hungry," the World Food Program (WFP) said on X.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack, killing at least 25,700 Palestinians and injuring 63,740 others. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while more than half of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.