 UN agencies have warned that at least 500,000 people may face famine if urgent humanitarian aid is not delivered. Officials of the World Food Program, the Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs that's the OCHA and the Food and Agriculture Organization briefed the UN Security Council on the situation in Gaza. The concern was also shared by many countries which also highlighted the role played by the US in the continuation of the war. We go to Abdul for more on this. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Yet another discussion in the UN Security Council. We have talked about some of these discussions in the past where various countries have taken positions. We'll get back to that. But first of all, what were the key reports by the officials of various agencies which have been monitoring the situation in Gaza, which have been in fact trying to provide relief to Gaza? Well Prashant, most of the agencies have very clearly stated during the during the UN Security Council meeting that how Israeli war in Gaza has led to complete destruction of whatever civilian infrastructure was there in the Gaza despite the over a decade of blockade, Israeli blockade and so on and so forth. And that that destruction has caused a situation where today almost all the Palestinians who were displaced due to the war and that means around two million of them are dependent on food aid and at least a quarter of them around a half a million of them are on the verge of famine. Femin primarily because there is not enough food reaching the territories and whatever is reaching there is not enough mechanism available within the within Gaza to basically to kind of distribute the food which is reaching there. So one that the supply of food and some other humanitarian commodities have gone down tremendously and which is not adequate to the two million people who are dependent on food supplies and other humanitarian supplies due to the war. And it is not possible even that whatever is reaching which is inadequate to distribute them at this moment primarily because because of the consistent Israeli bombings the ground offensive restrictions imposed because of the destruction caused on there is lack of enough fuel, roads are destroyed, there are not enough vehicles to transport whatever aid is reaching to different corners of Gaza and of course there are blockades which are imposed on some parts of Gaza for example northern Gaza the aid is not allowed by the Israelis. So all these restrictions and the lack of infrastructure lack of fuel and lack of of course adequate supply of food grains and other things majority of Palestinians are today are facing some kind of starvation some kind of food insecurity and a large number of them more than a million of them are on the verge of famine as per the claims made by the international agencies which are working on the ground. They also mentioned how their work has been impacted due to the lack of funding the reduction of funding to UNRWA the main agency UN agency which is responsible for the taking care of the majority of the Palestinians who are refugees of 1948. Could you also maybe take us to what for the views of some of the countries and especially the United States what position does it take or continue to take in this situation? Well if you see the responses of course it seems there is a clear cut division in the United Nations Security Council there is on the one side there is Russia China and most of other countries which are not directly aligned to the US which have clearly stated that what is happening in Gaza is basically a prolongation of the occupation it is attempt to genocide there is an attempt to basically kind of allow Israelis to kill as many Palestinians as possible force them into displacement and so on and so forth and this need to end most of them have repeatedly demanded immediate ceasefire and they have basically claimed that whatever humanitarian catastrophe we see in Gaza is primarily due to the war and that war they have clearly held responsible United States which has vetoed at least three times resolutions which have been asking ceasefire in Gaza so they have claimed that though Israeli is killing the Palestinians it is the US which basically is responsible for kind of not stopping that the massacre of Palestinians and that has led to the deterioration of humanitarian situation as well or US on the other hand has repeated as it has its claim that it is basically for him greater humanitarian access aid access wants to avoid the death of Palestinians as much as possible and has basically but at the same time justified whatever Israel has been doing in the last four or five months in Gaza so this is the clear cut there is a clear cut division in the United Nations Security Council and of course majority of the countries are in favor of immediate ceasefire and want to kind of even Russia for example claim that there should be sanctions against Israelis not only because of the killing but also because of violation of repeated violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions including the last resolution which was adopted for the greater access of the humanitarian aid into the territory and there also and yet another incident of Israeli forces firing at Gazans who are seeking aid which has become a very regular phenomenon as far as I understand could you talk a bit about that as well well this is the largest incident of such kind which has happened on Thursday more than 100 as per the latest reports more than 100 of Palestinians who gathered to basically in Gaza city to collect aid food aid of course as we said before most of them are starving there is not enough food available so whenever there is a food delivery or a news of food delivery people gather in large number to collect food items and other humanitarian essentials but Israel has basically used the gathering of Palestinians to target them and that's exactly what happened they fired Israeli soldiers fired on the people who were gathered to collect food they're trying as per the reports the tanks also trampled on the people who were basically gathered there who were lying on the floor because they were shot at and of course most of the Palestinian have called it a cold blooded murder and they have basically demanded that this incident should be kind of investigated at and there should be proceedings against Israel for committing war crimes but as per the records we have none of these incidents have basically featured into the countries into the consideration of the countries which basically decide the fate of the peace in Gaza including the US and so far there is no comment made by the US even the Israeli forces are saying they are investigating they have not issued any official statement but yeah this is one of the largest such killing so far into the last five years of war sorry five months of the war in Gaza. Right Abdul thank you so much for that update South Korea and the United States are said to hold their annual drills in the coming week reports say that this year's exercises will see twice the number of troops taking part from last year the key focus of these exercises will of course be North Korea specifically it's supposed nuclear threat the two countries have also stated that the drills are defensive in nature although the extent of the maneuvers calls that into question we go to Anish for more thank you so much Anish for joining us so maybe could you first take us to some of the details of what this military exercise is and you know what do we expect to see in these 10 days starting from March 4th. Well these military exercises are pretty much a a manual affair right now under the UN administration this was something that was set aside or you know comprehensively brought down in terms of its scale under the Moon Jae-in administration previously primarily because it was obviously provocative to North Korea very often that not the exercises tended to you know use North Korean targets or you know simulate North Korean targets and that and it used to be a massive affair thousands of soldiers would land and very often it happened at the armistice border the demilitarized zone and pretty much it was like war cries pretty much on the other side of the border no other country like anywhere else in the world it would have had a massive impact in tensions on peace itself and this was one of the reasons why the Moon Jae-in administration had cut down these military exercises in fact brought it out completely from the demilitarized zone and you know had a more generic kind of sort of military exercises with the US this was completely reversed and last year we had one of the largest exercises in about a decade between you know South Korea and the United States yeah South Korea is already making similar such trainings with Japan already and a trilateral sort of agreement is being pushed to actually bring the three countries militaries to have you know similar set of exercises so it's part of this attempt to present to the South Korean people or at least the more internationalist you know conservative constituency of the Yoon government to present themselves as some sort of nationalist that by aligning with the United States they're trying to fend off you know the communist regime somehow but it has only accelerated tensions over the past few years we have reported recently about how this is going to this has already impacted the peace process in between the two Koreas the North has already made the proclamations that it does not seek reunification as the ultimate goal and it deems the South Korean government the state there the Republic of Korea as you know enemy as are akin to an enemy entity so these are not something that came out of nowhere these came because of multiple successes of such military exercises almost all of them you know simulating attacks on Pyongyang or you know other North Korean military targets or you know civilian targets even and in all of these you know this sort of provocation continues to this day and we are very provocative statements as well by the South Korean government obviously this is also something that is coming up in the run up to the parliamentary election which the ruling government is expected to lose or have or is quite weak to actually face against the opposition so that is also a part of the context that we need to be keeping in mind Anish in this context important to ask how is North Korea over time also responded to some of these exercises yes so in as I as I pointed out like the biggest part of it is how the peace process has completely been derailed now the derailment actually happened under the Moon Jae-in government as well but not primarily because of the South Korean actions of the South Korean government but primarily because of the actions of the US government under Trump administration which was something that was carried up carried forward by the Biden administration as well and now with Yoon's presidency this has only accelerated even further to the point where provocations have become commonplace we have seen like for instance one of the biggest provocations where these anti-North Korean propaganda pamphlets that were being shipped or you know airdropped by conservatives from across the border something that Yoon has restarted again on top of that you have these exercises happening right at the demilitarized zone again as I said so these are not going to be taken lightly we are also seeing plans to expand the ballistic capacity by the North Korean government it has also started you know having arms trades with Russia something that it has avoided doing for a long time now so at least since the Soviet Union's dissolution this is something that the North Korean government has tried to like arms trade with foreign entities is something that it really tried to shy away from even though it was not entirely absent it was just something that was very low-key but right now what we've seen with recent Kim Putin meetings the whole point was to you know bring back the arms race that is already happening obviously their concern is obviously the fact that the South Korean side has already you know accelerated the arms race by actually you know expanding the arms trade with the United States and also Japan another seen as another you know enemy entity by the North Korean government obviously with a colonial baggage or and a colonial history as well something that the South Koreans or the South Korean government at least is very keen to forget at this point in time but all of in all of this the reaction has not been something that we should be having right now like the reactions have been quite you know pretty much of anger and this provocations if it continues we are going to see more more tensions at the very least in the coming months and that is again not a very good sign considering that North Korea is also a nuclear entity it's a nuclear state and it is something that cannot be you know that's something that cannot be ignored when we are talking about tensions and all sorts of provocations in the region and thank you so much for that update and that's all we have in today's daily debrief we'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow in the meantime do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org follow us on all the social media platforms and if you're watching this on youtube please hit the subscribe button