GAZA (Dispatches) – Gaza 
population is ‘on the verge of famine,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Sunday.
“People in Gaza are on the verge of famine,” UNRWA said in a statement. “UNRWA needs to be able to reach as many people as possible with critical aid.”
The UN agency said the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza “remains the most efficient and safest way.”
“Safe, unimpeded and sustained access throughout the Gaza Strip is a matter of life and death,” it added.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said he is gravely concerned over reports of the Zionist regime’s planned ground offensive in Rafah. 
“I’m gravely concerned about reports of an Israeli plan to proceed with a ground assault on Rafah,” Ghebreyesus wrote on X, emphasizing that an escalation of violence in the densely populated area would lead to even more deaths and suffering, especially due to crowded health facilities.
“The 1.2 million people in Rafah do not have anywhere safe to move to,” he added.
“In the name of humanity, we appeal to Israel not to proceed and instead to work towards peace.” 
The regime launched the war on October 7 after a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance movements, during which hundreds were taken captive.
At least 31,553 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and adolescents, have died in the military onslaught so far.
Ghebreyesus dismissed a so-called evacuation plan devised by the Israeli regime ahead of Rafah’s invasion. 
“The 1.2 million people in Rafah do not have anywhere safe to move to,” the WHO chief said.
“There are no fully functional, safe health facilities that they can reach elsewhere in Gaza,” he said, adding, “Many people are too fragile, hungry, and sick to be moved again...”
“This humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen.”
A day earlier, Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced in a statement that he “approved plans for a military operation in Rafah, and the army is operationally preparing for it...”
The statement provided no details on the exact time and date of the assault, and rejected the latest ceasefire proposal put forward by the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas as “unrealistic.”
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo says Israel’s inhumane “tactics of starvation” in Gaza are “inadmissible.” 
In a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Belgian leader said the regime in Tel Aviv has to urgently “provide more humanitarian access to Gaza.”
In separate remarks to journalists, during a visit to Jordan’s capital Amman, he condemned Israel for using hunger as a “weapon of war” in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“I see today there is a very large population [in Gaza] at risk of famine,” he said. “It’s up to Israel to prove that famine won’t be used as a weapon of war.”
The United Nations has repeatedly warned that northern Gaza in particular faces the threat of imminent famine.