'Not a shred of evidence' Hamas withholding aid in Gaza- UNICEF
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said that aid organisations "were not in the business of giving humanitarian assistance to terrorists".
"I think that trope has been widely debunked at this stage; it's simply not true. Not a shred of evidence has been produced to back that up," he said.
Mr Power said UN agencies and other trusted humanitarian organisations have been doing this for around 80 years now and are guided by the "highest principles of humanitarian delivery."
"They're not in the business of giving food or other humanitarian assistance to terrorists, and the all the briefings I've received from our own people it tells me, definitively, that that has not happened and that sort of accusation should not be made."
He added that 5,000 children in Gaza were severely malnourished and at risk of dying.
"In Gaza City, where I've visited, 16.3% of the children are severely acutely malnourished. When a child is severely acutely malnourished, they're at real risk of dying," he said.
"We have diagnosed 5,000 children in that category who need urgent medical assistance, but there are hundreds of thousands or more, of course, who are malnourished."
Every day, 200 children present at their malnutrition centres with acute malnutrition, he said.
Mr Power described the aid airdrops into Gaza as "tokenistic", as it was far short of what was required.
"Obviously, any aid whatsoever is welcome. But I should say that airdrops are really tokenistic.
"Each parachute can only drop one or two pallets, and a number of pallets would fill a truck.
"We need 500 trucks a day, that's what the United Nations system was bringing in during the ceasefire."
Man-made starvation crisis
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya yesterday, hoping to secure a bag of flour or some aid, amid worsening humanitarian conditions.
A global hunger monitor said yesterday that a famine scenario was unfolding in Gaza, with malnutrition soaring, children under five dying of hunger-related causes and humanitarian access severely restricted.
The alert by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the man-made starvation crisis in Gaza could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let in far more food.
With the international furore over Gaza's ordeal growing, Israel announced steps over the weekend to ease aid access. But the UN World Food Programme said yesterday it was not getting the permissions it needed to deliver enough aid since Israel began humanitarian pauses in warfare on Sunday.
Gaza health authorities have been reporting more and more people dying from hunger-related causes.
The total stands at 147, among them 88 children, most of whom died in the last few weeks.
Images of emaciated Palestinian children have shocked the world, with Israel's strongest ally, US President Donald Trump, declaring that many people were starving. He promised to set up new "food centres".
Israel has denied pursuing a policy of starvation. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said yesterday that the situation in Gaza was "tough", but there were lies about starvation there.
The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people into captivity in Gaza.
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