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March 25 (UPI) -- The United Nations said Sunday that Israel is banning its relief agency from delivering humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, which is under the gravest threat of famine of the entire Palestinian enclave. Gaza, and in particular northern Gaza, is on the brink of famine and the ban comes as the United Nations continues to ply pressure on Israel to do more to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
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Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, announced the ban on X, stating by preventing them from fulfilling their mandate in Gaza "the clock will tick faster towards famine & many more will die of hunger, dehydration + lack of shelter."
"This is outrageous & makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine," he said. "These restrictions must be lifted."
UNRWA is the largest relief agency operating in Gaza, and employees some 13,000 staff there. Along with supplying aid to Gaza, it runs more than 20 health centers, hundreds of schools and refugee camps in the enclave.
Though no reason for the ban was given, Israel has accused 12 UNRWA staff of having participated in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on the Middle Eastern country that killed 1,200 Israelis and ignited the months-long war.
UNRWA responded by firing 10 of the 12 named, as the two others were already dead, and launching an investigation into the allegations.
The ban also comes after two UNRWA food convoys were denied entry to northern Gaza in the past week, and it has been unable to deliver food to the region in nearly two months.
Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, better known as COGAT, responded to UNRWA's complaints over its food being turned back by accusing it on X of failing to live up to its mandate and being "deeply involved with a terrorist organization."
As the ban was announced, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres was calling for Gaza to be flooded with humanitarian aid and criticizing Israel for hindering relief from entering the Palestinian enclave.
Guterres made the remarks during a solidarity mission to Egypt to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
He said Sunday that "Palestinians in Gaza desperately need what has been promised -- a flood of aid. Not trickles. Not drops," and that to facilitate this "requires Israel removing the remaining obstacles and chokepoints to relief."
"It requires more crossings and and access points," he said. "It requires an exponential increase in commercial goods. And, I repeat, it requires an immediate humanitarian ceasefire."
Aid to the dependent Gaza was halted by Israel with the start of the war, and it took more than two weeks for the first convoy of trucks to enter the enclave.
Since then, an average of 126 good trucks have entered Gaza daily, according to COGAT.
Prior to the war, some 500 trucks would enter daily.
Meanwhile, trucks queue outside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the main way aid can enter Gaza.
COGAT has blamed the United Nations and its relief networks for their failure to distribute the aid, while the United Nations has been pointing its finger at Israel.
Guterres visited the Rafah border crossing in Egypt over the weekend. There, he saw "a long line of blocked relief trucks, while in Gaza there was "the long shadow of starvation," he told reporters Saturday.
"That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage."
