Will we use those empty words ‘we did all we can’?

Sir, – Justine McCarthy’s article (Gaza’s starving children, their eyes growing bigger as the blockade grinds on, are not fake news, Opinion, May 16th) acutely describes the horrific stages a child’s body goes through when they are dying of starvation. The sheer level and scale of suffering that children and the entire population of Gaza are currently enduring is hard to comprehend. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the entire population of Gaza is at critical risk of famine, with half a million facing starvation.

Having 171,000 metric tonnes of food ready for delivery in the region – enough to sustain the entire population of about 2.1 million people for three to four months – whilst a population starves, symbolises the collective failure of the international community.

The UN, EU member states including Ireland, and all those with influence over Israel must urgently use their political and economic leverage to stop the instrumentalisation of aid. Humanitarian supplies, food, fuel and medicines must be allowed to reach the population of Gaza now.

Will we look at this impending famine and do something, or as the UN’s relief chief Tom Fletcher said last week, will we use those empty words “we did all we can”?