The executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund on Sunday decried debates over the extent of hunger in Gaza as “kind of obscene.”
Speaking to host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” UNICEF’s Catherine Russell said: “To me, it’s kind of obscene that we are having these conversations arguing about whether the methodology works or not. We know children are dying, right? I am tired of a discussion about, well, are we giving the right information or not?”
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (which is often called IPC) declared last week there is famine in Gaza. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading,” the IPC report stated.
Israel, which has had issues with the United Nations for many years, rejected the IPC assessment as false and said it was meant “to smear Israel with lies” as part of an effort to discredit Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Russell, an American attorney, said to Brennan that the IPC is filled with “technical people,” not “political people,” and that there is a simple way for Israel to demonstrate the truth to the world.
“First of all, let the international press in,” Russell said. “Let them make determinations. I mean, we’ve talked about this, Margaret, of you coming. … Everyone should be able to get in there.”
Brennan noted that the footage of emaciated children being shown on “Face the Nation” was shot by reporters within Gaza since international reporters are not being permitted entry.
Russell added: “I have spoken to our staff, and they are seeing children who are incredibly deprived, many thousands of children who have had amputations, and are, you know, it’s just one terrible thing after another for children.”
The war in Gaza started when Hamas launched a lethal incursion into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. The fighting since then has claimed tens of thousands of lives, most of them combatants and noncombatants in Gaza.
Russell said the warfare has been brutal for all concerned.
“It’s been, now, almost two years since October 7th,” Russell said, “and since then, Israeli children have been killed and taken hostage, and now we’re seeing Palestinian children finally facing what we’ve been yelling and screaming about for months and months and months, which is a terrible famine.”
She added: “You know, we’ve estimated at this point that about 18,000 children in Gaza have already died. And those are children who die from a whole range of issues. But when you think about that, that’s about 28 children a day. That’s almost a classroom of children every single day who have died since the beginning of this conflict.”
UNICEF official calls bickering over hunger in Gaza ‘kind of obscene’
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