Food security experts warn Gaza there is a dangerous risk of famine if Israel does not end lockdown
If the situation remains unchanged, there is “a high risk” of a total famine.
In the past 10 weeks, Israel has banned all food, shelters, medicines and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory, even if it carried out air strikes and ground operations. Gaza’s population is about 2.3 million people rely almost exclusively on external aid to survive, as Israel’s 19-month large military campaign has eliminated most of the ability to produce food in the territory.
Despair scenes when food runs out of food supply are arranged sharply. For most people in Gaza now, the public kitchen that distributes cooking is actually the only source of food left, but they are also rapidly closing due to a lack of stock.
Thousands of Palestinians crowd outside the public kitchen every day, sticking out with pots to receive lentils or pasta. “We ended up waiting in line in the sun for four or five hours,” said Riham Sheikh El-eid. “In the end, we had nothing. It wasn’t enough for everyone.” The lack of a statement of famine does not mean that people are not starving to death, and the declaration should not be a prerequisite for ending suffering,” said Chris Newton, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, which focuses on the weapon of war.
“The Israeli government is starving Gaza to death, which is part of its attempt to destroy Hamas and change the striptease,” he said.
Israel demands a new aid system The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a request for comment. The Army said Israel entered Gaza during a two-month ceasefire in Israel when Israel restarted its military campaign.
Israel said the lockdown was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages it still owned. It said that the new system that was assigned will not be in place until its control is put into place, which does not allow aid, accusing Hamas of sneaky supply. The U.S. said it is developing a new mechanism that will start delivering soon, but there is no timetable.
To date, the United Nations has refused to participate. It denied that a large transfer of aid was taking place, saying that the new system was unnecessary, would not meet the huge Palestinian needs, and would allow aid to be used as a weapon for political and military goals.
Monday’s report said any minor gains during the ceasefire were reversed. It said Gaza’s entire population is facing almost a high level of hunger driven by conflict, infrastructure collapse, agricultural destruction and blockages of aid.
oxfam’s food security and livelihood coordinator Mahmoud Alsaqqa called on the government to urge Israel to allow “unhindered humanitarian visits.”
“Faced with this kind of artificial hunger silence is a complicity,” he said.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the group’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, where militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians and took 251 hostages, most of whom have been released in a ceasefire agreement or other deal.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the Israeli attack killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, whose crimes did not distinguish between civilians or combatants.
The three criteria for declaring a famine are the integrated food security phase classification, which was first established in 2004 during the famine in Somalia, a group that has multiple United Nations agencies, aid groups, governments and other agencies.
It declared only a few famines – in 2011 in Somalia and in 2017 and in 2020 in South Sudan, and in parts of western Sudan’s Darfur region last year. Thousands of people are believed to have died in Somalia and South Sudan.
When at least three things happen, it scores the area like a famine: 20% of families are very lacking in food, or are essentially hungry; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition or waste for six months to five years, meaning they are too thin. At least four children die daily due to hunger or interactions of malnutrition and disease in at least every 10,000.
The first threshold was encountered in Gaza, an assessment on Monday found, saying 477,000 people (22% of the population) were classified as “catastrophic” hunger (the highest level) from May 11 to the end of September.
It said more than 1 million people were at an “emergency” level of hunger, the second highest level, meaning they had a “high gap” in food and high acute malnutrition.
Other thresholds are not met. The data was collected on April and May 6. Food security experts say it takes time for people to start hunger.
If the lockdown and military movement continue, the “overwhelming majority” in Gaza will not have access to food or water, civil unrest will worsen, health services will “completely collapse”, disease will spread, and levels of malnutrition and death will surpass famine.
It also warned of the “imminent” famine in northern Gaza in March 2024, but the following month, Israel’s strike killed seven aid workers, and Israel allowed massive aid under U.S. pressure.
The aid team now says that this situation is the most terrifying of the entire war. The UN Humanitarian Office, known as OCHA, said Friday that the number of children seeking treatment in clinics has doubled since February, and even the supplies to treat them have quickly disappeared.
Aid organizations shut down food distributions due to lack of stocks. Many food has disappeared from the market, and the rest has spiraled in price, which most people can’t bear. Most of the farmland is destroyed or inaccessible. Water distribution is halting, mainly due to lack of fuel.
Beth Bechdol, deputy director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said more than 75% of the fields in Gaza were damaged or destroyed, and two-thirds of the wells were used for irrigation.
The destruction is “bringing these large numbers of people closer to what we think are possible”, she said.
