Famine in Gaza ‘is not a warning – this is a reality unfolding before our eyes', UN says
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 20pc of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving.
- At least 30pc 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.
'This is not a warning. It is a reality unfolding before our eyes,' UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said in a statement on the new report, adding that the 'trickle of aid must become an ocean'.
Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the strip
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'.
Israel's closest ally now appears to disagree. 'Those children look very hungry,' president Donald Trump said on Monday of the images from Gaza in recent days.
Meanwhile, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar rejected claims of 'starvation policies' in Gaza and said the focus on starvation is a 'distorted campaign of international pressure'.
'This pressure is directly sabotaging the chances for a ceasefire and hostage deal, it is only pushing towards military escalation by hardening Hamas's stance,' he said.
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The Journal
a day ago
- The Journal
MSF workers in Gaza city fear for malnourished women and children as Israel takeover looms
YESTERDAY MORNING, STAFF who work at the Doctors Without Border/ Médecins Sana Frontiére's (MSF's) primary health clinic in Gaza city got a message from their project co-ordinator to go ground; the Israeli military had given an evacuation order for a building it was preparing to strike nearby. The workers sheltered, the building shook from the impact of the strike, but no one was hurt. Caroline Willeman, the MSF Project Coordinator said that starting the day this way has become the normal 'nightmare' of day-to-day life for everyone in Gaza, but when news broke that Netanyahu's security cabinet had approved plans to take control of Gaza city, it was devastating. Caroline spoke to The Journal from Gaza city yesterday over Zoom. Foremost on her mind was the injured and malnourished people that the teams she oversees are working with; how would they survive being displaced again? 'The idea that all of Gaza city could be emptied out is terrifying and unfathomable, it has happened before, people will remember the images of thousands of Palestinians returning to the city after being pushed out in January. Currently whole zones are evacuated, so people are squeezed into the West,' Caroline said. She said that MSF is committed to staying in Gaza city for as long 'as it is feasible'. 'If this plan gets fully implemented, at some point, we will not be able to work here anymore,' Caroline added. 4-year old Julia is held by her father Ahmed after being injured in an airstrike at her home in Gaza city. 28 June 2025. MSF. MSF. Currently over 80 MSF workers are providing services including water trucking (the delivery of safe drinking water), a primary health clinic that carries out around 600 consultations a day, and a sexual reproductive health service with two midwives, a mental health team, a health promotion team, and a malnutrition programme. Parents desperately trying to enrol children in malnutrition programme The malnutrition programme is for children under five and women who are pregnant or lactating. The number of people being treated through the programme has increased five fold since May. Currently 1500 people are enrolled, and there are more pregnant women and new mothers being treated through it than children under five. 'Mothers are choosing to feed their children before eating themselves. 'We treat people for both what we call moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition. With the severe cases, if they are forced to evacuate, we won't be able to follow up with them anymore, they will lose the little support they have access to,' Caroline said. Every day the clinic is having to turn away parents who are desperately trying to have their children who are under five enrolled in the programme because they have not met the criteria for malnutrition. 'In these cases we know that if the food situation doesn't improve in the next week, that child will become malnourished, it is a matter of time. You are forcing them to get worse before you can help them, but there is no other way. In terms of the supplies we have, we have to be this strict,' Caroline explained. She said that people aren't being discharged from the programme because they aren't gaining enough weight: 'We provide therapeutic food that is meant to be eaten alongside real meals, they don't have those real meals, so they aren't actually getting better.' MSF community health worker explains to the patients malnutrition facts before entering for the check up in MSF Gaza clinic in Gaza city. 4 June. Injuries and deaths at aid distribution sites MSF's teams in Gaza city also operate a small field hospital around the corner from Al Shifa Hospital with 13 beds, which is intended to relieve bed capacity in the hospital by taking patients for the last days of their hospital stays, in order to allow the emergency rooms to treat people rapidly when there are mass casualties. A small number of their staff are also working in the Al Shifa Hospital Emergency Room. This week MSF published a report that called for an immediate end to Israel's militarised food distribution scheme in Gaza, labelling it 'institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation'. Advertisement Caroline Willeman speaking to The Journal from Gaza City yesterday. The report was titled 'This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing' and it details how in the two clinics MSFs runs near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites, medics received 1,380 injured people and 28 dead bodies in June and July. The patients included 174 suffering from gunshot wounds, including women and children, but for the most part they were young men and teen boys. MSF said that Israeli military 'crowd control' tactics have been 'lethal' and have led to these injuries and deaths. That's happening in northern Gaza, in the south, where Caroline and her team are, aid is being delivered by trucks that have been stocked by the World Food Programme. 'Desperate people bombard the trucks and then we see similar situations unfolding with people being shot at by the Israeli army, people being crushed, and sheer chaos. 'While there has been an increase in the number of trucks let in – and I want to be very clear that it is absolutely not enough – we are calling for a regular and sustained supply of aid to stop this chaos from happening,' Caroline said. The MSF team is made up mostly of Palestinians, there are only four international staff members on rotation with the teams at the moment. Caroline says that two weeks ago the situation with supplies became so dire that MSF was unable to provide food to the staff, recently the situation has improved only slightly. A Palestinian child who suffers from malnutrition undergos a medical checkup in MSF clinic in Gaza city. 4 June 2025. 'We offer the staff one portion of rice for the working day. Many of my colleagues don't eat that, they take it home and feed it to their children. 'What keeps us going is our Palestinian colleagues, they have been doing this for 22 months. They're hungry and many live in tents with their kids,' Caroline said. She said that the price of a kilo of sugar in the market in Gaza city has gone down from $110 per kilo to $12 per kilo. 'A colleague of mine described paying over $200 to get one piece of bread for each of her 31 extended family members. 'Two weeks ago there was absolutely no bread in the markets, and now we are seeing it again, but at these prices,' she said. Caroline has been doing humanitarian work for the last nine years. In that time she has been in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and worked as part of a search and rescue team in the Mediterranean. Yesterday she told The Journal that the scale of suffering she has witnessed in the last six weeks is beyond anything she has ever witnessed. 'It is what you are seeing on the news but in three dimensions, and it hits a million times harder. You see people lining up in the street with their jerry cans for water. You see the sheer level of destruction, it is unimaginable. 'I have never witnessed anything like this. I've never witnessed until now, a genocide with my own eyes,' Caroline said. She added that one case that the team have dealt with in the last six weeks will be etched into her memory for life. 'We had a six-year-old boy called Abdullah whose body was, you could say, 35% covered in burns. He was injured in an airstrike at the school where he was living, because all of the schools have become shelters. He was one of five children. Both of his parents and all four of his siblings were killed in the same strike. 'His uncle, who is now his caretaker, kept saying to our doctors, 'Do you know how precious this boy's life is? That he is the only one to survive, do you know how precious he is?' 'That is a question that I would love to ask the world leaders who are in power, 'Do you realise how precious the children of Gaza are?', because it seems to me that none of them do,' Caroline said. The Belgian aid worker said that after yesterday's news of Israel's plans, she is struggling to get her head around the idea that in the next two weeks, she will witness the situation for people in Gaza city get worse than the 'sheer devastation' she is seeing already every day. You can find out more about MSF and ways to lend support here. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
The Journal
a day ago
- The Journal
Being a first-time TD: Martin Daly on keeping his GP practice going and his concerns about racism
AS THE DÁIL summer recess continues, we have been working through the list of newly elected TDs to learn more about how they are adjusting to life in Leinster House. Last week we caught up with Fine Gael's James Geoghegan and Fianna Fáil's Erin McGreehan , today we hear from Fianna Fáil TD for Roscommon-Galway, Martin Daly. Following his election in November last year, Daly, a practising GP and former president of the Irish Medical Organisation, was quickly appointed as his party's spokesperson on health and disability. He spoke to The Journal by phone as he travelled from his GP practice to a constituency clinic in Roscommon, and told us how he is managing to juggle the two roles, why it was always going to be Fianna Fáil for him, and shared his concerns about a rise in racism in Ireland. Is life as a TD what you expected? 'Yes. Well, I had been involved in local politics for a long number of years, and I understood the role of the TD pretty well. 'I always respected our TDs and senators and our county councillors as well-intentioned, hard-working individuals. So I was under no illusions that the job would be demanding and that it would entail considerable work and commitment. 'So there are no surprises there from my part. I was a busy GP in my career, and it's very much like that in terms of the demands,' Daly said. Since becoming a TD, Daly has continued to 'help out' at his practice, usually on a Monday or Friday morning when the Dáil isn't sitting. He has worked at the practice in Ballygar in Galway for over 30 years, running it with his wife, Dr Myriam Mangan, and a business partner, Dr Clodagh Murray. In total, four doctors work at the practice, including him, but Daly said they could do with another one now that he is a TD. He says this work, and the issues he saw patients dealing with, has been one of the driving forces that led him to politics. Daly comes from a 'long line of Fianna Fáil supporters', and this is why the party was a 'natural fit' for him. Advertisement 'I was born into a Fianna Fáil family and anything alternative to that would have been considered heresy,' he said, adding that he was involved in Ógra Fianna Fáil in his youth and has long canvassed for Fianna Fáil candidates long before he ever ran for election. Peak and pit What has been the highlight of being a TD so far? 'It's a great privilege, number one, being elected by your constituency. 'So being elected was a highlight, but as a TD, I represented the Oireachtas at the United Nations on 22 July at a high-level intergovernmental meeting on sustainable development. 'I was a first responder from the floor for the panel for sustainable development, equality and health, and I have to say it's not something, if you asked me 12 months ago, I would have expected to have done. And I have to say I was proud to be at the United Nations and representing the Oireachtas.' Daly on the campaign trail Martin Daly Martin Daly Any lowlights? 'The plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza. 'I do think that while the Irish government has gone out on a limb internationally to advocate for Palestinian people in Gaza, there are times I get depressed by the lack of progress. 'Ireland is a small country. We cannot do this on our own. We do need the big countries to act to prevent further genocide in Gaza. And that, to me, is the disappointment that has continued to persist during my time as a TD.' In terms of what more Ireland could do, Daly said he would like the government to 'do everything we can that would be effective in getting the attention of the Israeli Government in terms of how it is prosecuting the war and the occupation of the West Bank.' Asked if he is in favour of including services in the forthcoming Occupied Territories legislation , Daly said: 'My concern is that anything we do should be effective and should have culture-changing behaviour in terms of the Israelis, and that we should also be careful that we don't injure our own prospects in terms of our industry and our employment.' He added: 'I think our best hope is in influencing bigger countries. And we have seen a shift in the British position, in the French position and the Canadian position, and we need to continue to work through the powerful union of the European Union.' Related Reads Being a first-time TD: Will I still be doing this at 80? I don't know but I love it for now. Being a first-time TD: I was told people like me don't go to college. This is a dream come true. Being a first-time TD: 'People are much nicer in the Dáil bar than they are in the chamber' Daly added, however, that he has been 'disappointed by the attitude of the European Union' in relation to Israel and Palestine. Any surprises since becoming a TD? 'Well, it's not really a surprise, but it's really reaffirmed my confidence in people in general. 'The vast majority of people are trying to live their lives productively and happily, and looking for basic access to basic services and are extremely easy to deal with. 'It's reaffirmed my faith in people, and I hope that I personally will be able to add to the constituency and advocate on their behalf nationally.' Final musings 'One concern I've had since becoming a TD is the rise in racism. 'I'm half Indian by birth. My mother was an Indian doctor who came and lived in Ireland and practised here and raised her family,' Daly said. 'I am disappointed and dismayed by the rising racism. And I have to say, I was hugely and emotionally upset by the individual reports of assaults on the Indian community in Ireland.' In recent weeks, the Indian embassy in Ireland has warned its citizens to take safety precautions for their personal safety after what it says has been a rise in physical attacks on members of the Indian community. Just this week, a family in Waterford spoke out about how their six-year-old daughter was attacked and racially abused and a man suffered head injuries after an early morning attack in Dublin. Daly made the point that these communities have been invited in by Ireland to work and said that without them, the country 'would grind to a halt at this stage'. He plans to arrange a meeting with the Indian ambassador to Ireland to discuss the rise in racism. 'I do think public representatives need to speak out about the value that our immigrant community bring to our society and our economy,' Daly said. 'There's a role for government to educate people, but I also think there should be zero tolerance in relation to racism.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Gaza aid distribution sites are ‘death traps', warns MSF, as Cork refugee shares family's plight
Dead bodies, many shot in the head or stomach as they reached out for food, now lie uncollected for weeks at 'aid' delivery sites, decomposing under the bright Gazan sun. 'It's too dangerous to collect them,' Cork chef, Gazan refugee, and UCC student Habib Al Ostaz said. 'They think 'if I go to move him I'll die next to him.' Bodies are now left there for weeks. 'At first, if someone was injured, people would rush to help. If someone died, their body would be taken. Habib Alostaz, manager and chef, next to a map of Palestine in Izz Café, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane 'But now, when someone is injured trying to get aid, people just care about what food aid they can get themselves. People are so hungry and desperate.' On Thursday, medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the food distribution sites as 'orchestrated killing.' A new report by MSF found 'both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians at food distribution sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).' MSF has called for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme and the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism. A Palestinian carries the body of a man killed while trying to receive aid near a distribution center operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Netzarim, in the Gaza Strip. In May, Israeli authorities sought to dismantle the UN-led humanitarian response and replace it with a militarised food distribution scheme operated by GHF. All four GHF-run distribution sites are in areas under full Israeli military control, and 'secured' by private American armed contractors, the report noted. MSF also called on governments, especially the United States, as well as private donors, to suspend all financial and political support for the GHF, "whose sites are essentially death traps." Between June 7 and July 24, 2025, 1,380 casualties, including 28 dead, were received at MSF's Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics in southern Gaza, located near the GHF-run distribution sites. 'During those seven weeks, our teams treated 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15. Faced with no alternatives to find food, starved families frequently send teenage boys into this lethal environment, as they are often the only males in the household physically able to make the journey," the report said. Patients also included a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed all the way through his abdomen, and five young girls, one of whom was only eight years old and suffered a gunshot wound to her chest, the MSF report said. 'Children shot in the chest while reaching for food. People crushed or suffocated in stampedes. Entire crowds gunned down at distribution points,' Raquel Ayora, MSF General Director said. In MSF's nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians 'The GHF distribution sites masquerading as 'aid' have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,' Ms Ayora said. 'This must stop now.' Speaking from Cork, Mr Al Ostaz questioned what kind of aid GHF was delivering when so many are being killed when trying to access food. He cannot listen to his family's voices anymore, they are so weakened by starvation. 'If you heard them, you would cry,' he said. Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip. Although his father narrowly escaped almost certain death in an airstrike on an aid delivery point earlier this summer, the family was so hungry that they have had to return to the aid delivery sites. 'They just want to eat. The children just want to eat," Mr Al Ostaz said. A kilo bag of flour now costs €60. There is no cash left in ATMs so dealers take 50% commission for giving out any cash from online bank transfers. 'And even if you have money, there's nothing to buy. The markets are empty.' Sometimes, his family grinds lentils to use as a flour to make bread. But this causes some of his family extreme stomach pain. His 45-year-old mother has cancer. Habib and his brother have appealed to the Irish State and the Red Cross to evacuate her for medical treatment in Ireland. But their pleas have gone unanswered. 'We applied one-and-a-half years ago but have no updates on it." Because Mr Al Ostaz does not currently have refugee status in Ireland they did not qualify, he was told. Living in their partially bombed home in northern Gaza, his family can no longer work to rebuild it. Exhausted, their days are now spent searching for food and water and gathering wood to make a fire to cook on. 'It's like they've gone back to the stone age,' Mr Al Ostaz said. Just last week, their neighbour's home was bombed and a deadly fire gutted the building. All six members of the family were killed, including three young children. The youngest was just two years old. The pain in Mr Al Ostaz's voice is awfully audible as he speaks about the tragedy and shares a video of the raging fire which trapped the young family inside their home. 'Dad went to try to save them but the whole family was burned. They were our neighbours. They lived 10m away," he said. 'Imagine if that bomb went to my family.' Habib turned 29 this week but he did not celebrate it. 'I didn't want a celebration. I didn't want gifts. I can't celebrate while my family and so many other people are starving.' Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City. The 22-month war has been so relentless in its horror that it leaves no time to process the constant march of tragedies, he said. 'You can't catch the feeling from yesterday, you just have to prepare yourself for the next catastrophe.' He used to dream of meeting his family and hugging them. Now, his biggest dream is that they will stay alive and get enough food to avoid starvation. He used to hope for a good education for his siblings, the youngest of whom is aged five. 'But now I just want them to live and survive,' he said. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel intends to take military control of the entire Gaza Strip, drawing condemnation both internationally and within Israel. Military officials in Israel have warned that such an escalation of the war would risk hostages' lives. On Friday, Israel's political-security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, as the country expands its military operations, however, this plan stopped short of Netanyahu's call for a full takeover of the besieged strip. Any full-scale military takeover of Gaza will cause more deaths and suffering and must be halted immediately, the United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said. But Israel's threats to taken over the entire strip do not feel new or surprising, Mr Al Ostaz said. 'Since 1948 [when the State of Israel was formed and more than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced] we have seen this. 'They only know about occupying lands from the Palestinians. 'This is not new. 'We need him to stop this war, to stop sending weapons. '20,000 children have been killed in Gaza. 'Children are starving, being maimed and murdered. But countries still keep sending arms to Israel. 'What kind of world are we living in? 'Children have been left with no hands, no legs, no water, no education. 'Everyone knows what's going on but they don't do anything about it. 'There has been talk of recognising a Palestinian state. But it's just speeches and useless words when these countries are still sending weapons to Israel."
