Famine unfolding across Gaza, says global hunger monitor
The enclave, which has long been reliant on aid as a heavy Israeli and Egyptian blockade took its toll, has been teetering on the edge of famine for two years of conflict, the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said. The situation has 'worsened dramatically' in recent months, with food consumption at its lowest level since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began.
'The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,' the IPC alert read. The IPC, a panel developed by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, can formally declare a famine only after the completion of a full analysis, which is underway.
'Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,' it said. 'Latest data indicates that Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.'
In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that there is any starvation in Gaza, describing it as a 'bold-faced lie.' But images, data verified by the globe's leading food crisis monitor, countless warnings by the United Nations and aid agencies, and hundreds of interviews with Palestinian civilians and doctors, show otherwise.
At least 147 people have died of malnutrition, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, including 88 children. The number is almost twice as high as it was a month earlier.
On Sunday, amid growing international pressure and a domestic political window, Israel said it would ease some of the restrictions in place on allowing aid for the Gazan population — more trucks would be able to enter, secure corridors for their movement would be created, and fighting would pause for 10 hours per day in three major population centers to help with distribution.
U.N. officials welcomed the shift in Israeli policy, but they warned that if it is only enacted for one week, as Israeli military officials told them it would be, it would not be enough to reverse the tide of starvation-related deaths. Publicly, the military said the tactical pauses and increased aid into Gaza would last 'until further notice.'
But three days in, it is not immediately clear how much of an impact the increased flow of aid into Gaza is having. The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the branch of the Israeli military that handles civil affairs in the occupied territories, said that on Monday they allowed 200 trucks to be collected and distributed, 20 pallets of aid to be dropped from the sky and the entry of four fuel tankers.
Desperation, though, is so high that convoys have been mobbed by hungry Palestinians and it is not clear how much of the aid has made it to organized distribution areas.
The U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday that despite Israel's shift in policy, it is still not being allowed to get the necessary volumes of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
'We have not gotten the authorization, the permission to move in the volumes that we've requested,' Ross Smith, a senior regional program adviser at WFP said at a briefing in Geneva.
An area is classified as in famine when it meets three conditions, the IPC explained: at least one in three children must be acutely malnourished; one in five people must be suffering extreme food shortages; and two in every 10,000 people must die daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
Based on the latest data, which is as of July 25, two famine thresholds have been passed, the IPC said.
The Israeli government did not immediately comment on the findings.
Between May and July, the proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger has doubled, the alert said. In most areas of the Gaza Strip, the level of food consumption has passed the threshold for famine, it added, and in Gaza City, the threshold has been passed for the number of malnourished children.
The Famine Review Committee, an independent body that vets IPC findings, endorsed the alert and said that while 'an extreme lack of humanitarian access' hinders data collection in Gaza, that it is 'clear from available evidence that starvation, malnutrition, and mortality are rapidly accelerating.'
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