United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged the international community to reject hunger as a weapon of war, saying it fuels instability and undermines peace.
Guterres said this at a UN conference in Ethiopia, as he lamented that climate change is disrupting harvests, supply chains, and humanitarian aid, while conflict continues to spread hunger from Gaza to Sudan and beyond.
Meanwhile, Israel’s government, has persistently denied that it is using hunger as a weapon of war, and instead accuses the aid agencies of failing to pick up and distribute aid delivered to Gaza’s border crossing points.
Reports say on Sunday, Israel began a “tactical pause” in the fighting to allow the UN and aid agencies to tackle the hunger crisis, as the World Health Organization warned that malnutrition was reaching “alarming levels.”