UN-Backed Monitor Declares What’s Long Been Feared: Famine is Happening in Gaza
“It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed.”
On Friday, the UN-backed body that monitors food crises worldwide confirmed that famine is taking place in areas in and around Gaza’s largest city, and that it is expected to spread to other parts of the Strip in the coming weeks if nothing changes.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a quarter of Gaza’s population – nearly 514,000 people – are experiencing famine across the Gaza Governorate, which covers Gaza City and its surrounding areas. Another 1 million Palestinians – 50% of the population – are experiencing Phase 4 “emergency” levels of hunger, which is the final phase before famine. Every single person in Gaza is experiencing at least Phase Three or crisis-level hunger.
The IPC warned that famine is expected to spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September. The report noted that conditions north of Gaza City are estimated to be just as severe or even worse than the Gaza Governorate, but limited data have prevented the IPC from being able to accurately assess the area, “highlighting the urgent need for access.”
The Gaza Ministry of Health said Friday that at least 273 people have died of starvation, including 112 children.
The IPC report notes that over 90% of children under 2 years old consume fewer than two food groups per day, with high-protein and micronutrient-rich foods in extreme scarcity, hindering children’s immunity and development. The scarcity also impacts pregnant and breastfeeding women, harming their ability to breastfeed their babies, compromising the health of both mother and child. In July alone, the report notes that 58% of children in Gaza experienced fever, nearly half suffered from skin infections, 43% had diarrhea, and 25% had acute respiratory infections.
“This is what our staff and partners have been witnessing for months: Mothers are now too malnourished to nurse their starving babies. People are being forced to walk miles across treacherous terrain to find food, only to be shot. Elderly under fire are too weak to flee,” Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam’s food security and livelihoods coordinator, said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the IPC’s assessment an “outright lie.” The unserious reaction only underscores how globally-isolated Israel has become while pursuing its genocidal campaign on Gaza – and consequently how alone the US is in backing it unconditionally.
Friday’s report comes after months of desperate warnings from Palestinians in Gaza and international aid groups, who have said Israel’s violence and severe restrictions on aid have created a man-made starvation crisis that will only continue to worsen if there is no ceasefire.
“It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher.
“It is a famine on all of our watch,” he added. “Everyone owns this. The Gaza Famine is the world’s famine. It is a famine that asks ‘but what did you do?’ A famine that will and must haunt us all.”
Have a tip for Prem? Send via email or Signal (premthakker.35).
Check out more from Zeteo:
Going out to protest yet again in Aotearoa New Zealand for the 96th week. It's just the worse fail of humanity of our times. And our Western Governments are totally colluding and complicit in it. I worked in an human rights organization in the 90s, and we thought the arrival of the internet and images of real time human rights abuses would put us out of a job. How wrong we were. Meanwhile Keir Starmer's Govt announces harsh penalties against illegal immigrants and failed Asylum Seekers. Why do people flee their countries? Is it because their homes become "the mouth of a shark?" What's happened to us? And how can we change course for humanity?
When you look at that bleak picture of the suffering that our racism & corruption has caused, keep in mind that the people who made it to that point, are the strongest. By comparison, the rest of Gaza's population is MORE frail, and MORE desperate.
What the fuck is wrong with us?