GAZA: A senior United Nations official has said that supplies of food to southern Gaza are at risk after Israel extended its military operations and those displaced by the offensive there face a public health crisis, Reuters reports.

While hunger and the risk of famine have been most acute in northern Gaza in recent months, the situation is now deteriorating in the south, said Carl Skau, deputy director of the UN World Food Programme.

“We had stocked up before the operation in Rafah so that we had put food into the hands of people, but that’s beginning to run out and we don’t have the same access that we need, that we used to have,” Skau said after a two-day trip to Gaza.

The United States has imposed sanctions on extremist Israeli group Tzav 9, accusing it of blocking convoys and looting and burning trucks trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Tzav 9 is a right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza while Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory.

“Individuals from Tzav 9 have repeatedly sought to thwart the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by blockading roads, sometimes violently,” the US State Department said.

“They also have damaged aid trucks and dumped life-saving humanitarian aid onto the road.”

The State Department statement said that on May 13, Tzav 9 members looted and set fire to two trucks in the West Bank carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“The provision of humanitarian assistance is vital to preventing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from worsening and to mitigating the risk of famine,” it said.