BEIRUT, (PIC)
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza has become tragic, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan emphasized on Saturday, warning of imminent casualties due to food shortages, which are pushing the Strip toward famine.
During a news conference on the developments of the ongoing Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, Hamdan said UN estimates indicate that 70 percent of Gaza’s population is at risk of famine, adding that Israel’s policy of siege, through the blocking of border crossings, has exacerbated the food crisis in Gaza.
Hamdan accused that Israeli occupation forces of systematically destroying vital infrastructure, including roads, water networks, and sewage systems, and denying the Gaza people access to drinking water.
Hamdan pointed out that the Israeli government ignores notifications from humanitarian organizations, which makes relief work extremely dangerous, emphasizing that the Israeli occupation’s practices resemble “an advanced form of the Nazi detention and extermination camps, and even worse.”
Hamdan considered Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza as one of the brutal methods of warfare targeting innocent civilians, making it tantamount to genocide, adding that Israel’s policies of cutting off electricity and water also constitute acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The Hamas official described the failure of world leaders to prevent the starvation of the Gaza people as “shameful,” adding that the world has seen footage of Palestinian detainees suffering from considerable weight loss due to the starvation policy pursued against them in Israeli jails at the behest of far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
He also accused the US administration of participating in the ongoing starvation campaign against the Gaza people through its persistence in supporting and covering up Israel’s war crimes and genocide in the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Hamdan also answered a question about the mediators’ efforts to broker a ceasefire deal over Gaza, saying there was no progress in this regard.
Hamas is still ready to “deal positively” with any ceasefire proposal that ends the war and secures a complete military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a serious swap deal, Hamdan told journalists in Beirut.
