Israel forces Palestinians to eat 'animal feed, donkeys, horses' amid food crisis: report

The situation in northern Gaza took a dire turn as Palestinians were forced to eat animal feed, donkeys, and horses to survive, according to British charity Oxfam's official.

Oxfam's Bushra Khalidi said that the Israeli military has blocked the entry of food into northern Gaza for 10 days.

Khalidi condemned the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) actions, calling it "unacceptable."

“People are not surviving. People are very likely dying of starvation as they have been since the beginning of the war. The problem is, we’re talking about levels of destruction that didn’t exist several months ago,” the social activist said while talking to Al Jazeera.

“I don’t know how people will survive. It’s likely they’ll die of starvation, die from the massacres we’re seeing in the north, or die trying to evacuate to the south,” she added.

The World Food Programme reports that 96% of Gaza's population faces acute food insecurity, with 2.15 million people at crisis levels of hunger or worse. 

"Almost half a million of these are in Catastrophic conditions," it added.

Most Palestinians, she noted, are "ready to die in their homes" rather than undertaking “death march” to southern Gaza.

The Israeli Army has blocked 83 percent of food aid and destroyed or seized over 75 percent of Gaza's farmland, further entrenching the humanitarian crisis.

The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out an operation in Israel, killing 1,200 people, including 350 Israeli soldiers, and taking 250 hostages.

In response, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Gaza and initiated a ground operation, which continues to this day.

The ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza since October 7 has resulted in approximately 42,000 killed, over 98,000 injured, and more than 10,000 people missing.