‘Worst-case scenario of famine' happening in Gaza, experts say
A new alert, still short of a formal famine declaration, follows an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war.
The international pressure led Israel over the weekend to announce measures, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and air drops.
The United Nations and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed though, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm and unload delivery trucks before they can reach their destinations.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years but recent developments have 'dramatically worsened' the situation, including 'increasingly stringent blockades' by Israel.
A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza and mobility within has largely denied.
The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan's western Darfur region last year.
But independent experts say they do not need a formal declaration to know what they are seeing in Gaza.
'Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she's familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza's symptoms. This is famine,' Alex de Waal, author of Mass Starvation: The History And Future Of Famine and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, told The Associated Press.
An area is classified as in famine when all three of the following conditions are confirmed:
– At least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving.
– At least 30% of children aged six months to five-years-old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they are too thin for their height.
– At least two people or four children under five per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
The report is based on available information through to July 25 and says the crisis has reached 'an alarming and deadly turning point'.
It says data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza — at its lowest level since the war began — and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
The report says nearly 17 out of every 100 children under the age of five in Gaza City are acutely malnourished.
Mounting evidence shows 'widespread starvation'.
Essential health and other services have collapsed. One in three people in Gaza is going without food for days at a time, according to the World Food Programme.
Hospitals report a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths in children under five. Gaza's population of over two million has been squeezed into increasingly tiny areas of the devastated territory.
The IPC's latest analysis in May warned that Gaza will likely fall into famine if Israel does not lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.
Its new alert calls for immediate and large-scale action and warns: 'Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the strip.'
Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages.
Israel eased those restrictions in May but also pushed ahead with a new US-backed aid delivery system that has been wracked by chaos and violence.
The traditional, UN-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds swarm convoys.
While Israel says there is no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza, UN agencies and aid groups say even the latest humanitarian measures are not enough to counter the worsening starvation.
In a statement Monday, Doctors Without Borders called the new air drops ineffective and dangerous, saying they deliver less aid than trucks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said no one is starving in Gaza and that Israel has supplied enough aid throughout the war, 'otherwise, there would be no Gazans'. Israel's military criticised what it calls 'false claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza'.
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Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Why children are starving so much faster than adults in Gaza
How is it that Palestinian children in Gaza are starving and emaciated, while the adults cradling them appear reasonably healthy? The question is circulating widely on social media – often to imply that parents of starving children are hoarding food, or even that the images of starvation coming from Gaza are staged or fabricated. But the answer is horribly simple, say doctors: children are smaller and have less energy reserves to draw on when food runs out. The result is that they starve - and die - much faster than adults. 'Without food, a child will be gone within a fortnight or so. An adult can last between 40 to 70 days,' Dr Andrew Prentice, Professor of international nutrition at the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine in The Gambia told The Telegraph. 'Metabolically, the adults [in Gaza] will already be in real trouble too. They'll be on the way to losing a lot more weight, and themselves become skeletal, but it is just so much quicker in the children,' Prof Prentice added. One in three people in Gaza - about 420,000 people - are going days at a time without food, while one in five are estimated to be at risk of starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Between March and June, just 56,000 tonnes of food entered the territory, less than a quarter of Gaza's minimum needs and equivalent to around 810 calories per person per day: an intake and on par with what prisoners in Auschwitz were fed in World War Two, according to historical estimates. At the time of writing, the total death toll from malnutrition since October 2023 is 154, amongst them 89 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. More than half of those deaths – 86 – have occurred in the last 11 days. Starvation takes time, but can accelerate very rapidly in children, experts say. When a person eats less than they need, the body doesn't immediately start shutting down but wastes away gradually. In the first 24 hours with little or no food, the body relies on a form of stored sugar called glycogen, which is kept in the liver. Once that sugar runs out – usually within a day – the body begins to burn fat for energy. In adults, this transition can take longer because they tend to have slower metabolisms and larger energy reserves. But in babies and young children, the switch happens much faster. Their bodies burn through energy more rapidly. That's because, relative to their size, children require far more calories than adults just to stay alive. A baby, for example, needs around four times as many calories per kilogram of body weight as an adult, according to Dr Prentice. Their organs, especially the brain and heart, are still developing and consume a disproportionately large amount of energy. This means that when food disappears, children reach critical levels of starvation much sooner than adults, because their bodies are far less equipped to withstand its absence. Prof Prentice describes children as 'a bundle of metabolic activity' – their bodies are constantly working and need steady fuel to function. Once a person's fat stores are used up, the body enters a dangerous phase: it starts breaking down muscle and organ tissue to make fuel. At that point, the body is cannibalising itself to survive. Muscles shrink, and critical organs like the liver and kidneys start to deteriorate. 'That's when things start to become really serious,' says Prof Prentice. Children are especially vulnerable because their bodies are made up of much less muscle than adults – only about 15 per cent, compared to 45 per cent – so they have less to fall back on when starvation sets in. 'If you have 45 percent muscle, it will take a lot more time to reach starvation. 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Despite the visible wasting, fluid retention caused by a lack of protein can lead to swelling in the feet, ankles, or tummy. Many Telegraph readers will remember similar images of small children with large, protruding bellies trickling out from Biafara in the 1960s and Ethiopia in the 1980s. People feel constantly cold; with the thyroid suppressed and fat stores gone, the body no longer generates enough heat. Movement becomes slow and exhausting, even basic tasks may be impossible, and mental fog, apathy, or confusion set in. Some will start to hallucinate, say experts. If death doesn't come from heart failure, it often results from infection – something as simple as a cold or skin wound – because the immune system has collapsed beyond repair.
ITV News
4 hours ago
- ITV News
Gaza is 'on the brink' but what does it take for famine to be declared?
The United Nations has warned that the "worst-case scenario of famine" is "playing out" in Gaza and the situation had reached a deadly point. The Secretary General António Guterres said Gaza was "on the brink of famine" but stopped short of formally declaring famine in the region. "Palestinians in Gaza are enduring a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions," he said. "This is not a warning. "It is a reality unfolding before our eyes. "This nightmare must end." The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) alert showed two out of three famine thresholds had been breached in Gaza and the situation had drastically worsened over the past few months. It has warned that failing to act would result in "widespread death". So why hasn't a famine officially been declared? When is a famine declared? Declarations are generally made by the UN using data and analysis from the IPC. Famine is defined as a severe, widespread shortage of food leading to malnutrition, starvation and death. For a region to be classified as in famine, it must meet these three conditions: 1) One in five households have an extreme lack of food 2) At least 30 per cent of the population is acutely malnourished 3) At least two people - or four children under the age of five - in every 10,000 die from starvation daily What is the situation in Gaza? Two out of three famine thresholds have been breached in Gaza, according to the IPC. Its data showed more than one in three people - 39 per cent - of the Gaza population had an extreme lack of food and were going days without eating. The IPC said more than 500,000 people – that is nearly a quarter of Gaza's population – were enduring famine-like conditions, while the rest of the population faced 'emergency levels of hunger'. According to the UN World Food Programme, every child under the age of five in Gaza - more than 320,000 children - was at risk of acute malnutrition. In June, 6,500 children were admitted for treatment for malnutrition, the highest number since the conflict began. "This signals a critical deterioration in nutritional status and a sharp rise in the risk of death from hunger and malnutrition," the IPC said. But the threshold not yet met, according to the IPC, was the number of deaths from starvation. Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said 89 children had died showing signs of hunger and malnutrition since the war began and that 65 adults had also died from malnutrition-related causes since June. But the IPC said collecting robust data under the current circumstances in Gaza remained very difficult, as health systems, already decimated by nearly three years of conflict, were collapsing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no-one was starving in Gaza and that Israel has supplied enough aid during the war. How important is a formal declaration of famine? According to the WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain, waiting for a formal declaration of famine would be too late. "Waiting for official confirmation of famine to provide life-saving food aid they desperately need is unconscionable," she said. "We need to flood Gaza with large-scale food aid, immediately and without obstruction and keep it flowing each and every day to prevent mass starvation. "People are already dying of malnutrition, and the longer we wait to act, the higher the death toll will rise." The humanitarian director for Save the Children International Rachael Cummings agreed. 'If we don't have the conditions to react to this mass starvation, we will see this exponential rise,' she said. 'So we will see thousands and potentially tens of thousands of people die in Gaza. "That is preventable.' How can the risk of famine in Gaza be reversed? The Gaza population relies on aid and it needs more than 62,000 tons every month to cover basic humanitarian food and nutrition assistance, according to UN agencies. Following international pressure, Israel promised new measures at the weekend to help allow aid into Gaza, including pauses in fighting and designated humanitarian corridors. But organisations operating in the territory said "barely a trickle" of what was required had managed to get through. COGAT, the Israeli military body that facilitates the entry of aid, said more than 220 trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday. But UN agencies say that is far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day that are needed. Food is one thing but WFP and UNICEF have warned that the lack of fuel, water and other vital aid was also undermining their efforts to prevent famine and deaths. The aid agencies said allowing commercial food imports into the region was also critical to provide dietary needs, like fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy products and protein. Along with restoring essential services, such as health, water and sewage infrastructure. How many famines have been declared in the world? Famine declarations are rare. The IPC declared a famine in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020 and parts of Sudan's western Darfur region in 2024.
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