The world’s leading hunger monitoring system on Tuesday issued a warning that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza due to the Israel-imposed starvation and siege.
“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,” the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in a new report.
“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
The warning comes as nearly 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have succumbed to death from starvation since Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in October 2023.
“Malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July,” the IPC said.
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“Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished. Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children under five years of age, with at least 16 reported deaths since 17 July.”
The IPC called for immediate action to end the siege and allow for unimpeded access to humanitarian aid.
Unrwa, the UN’s largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has told MEE that it has had 6,000 aid trucks in Egypt and Jordan for over four and a half months awaiting Israeli permits to enter Gaza.
The IPC’s latest analysis in May projected that by September the entire 2.1 million population would face acute food insecurity and more than 500,000 people would reach a state of extreme starvation.
The IPC’s report is a warning rather than a formal declaration of famine.
According to the monitor’s classification system, there are five phases of acute food insecurity, the worst is Phase 5, where a catastrophic level of hunger is detected among households. In that phase, the IPC relies on three metrics: 20 percent of households in an area suffer an extreme lack of food resulting in critical levels of acute malnutrition and death, acute malnutrition among children under five reaches 30 percent, and at least two deaths per 10,000 people per day are recorded.
The international community has stepped up pressure on Israel to end its deadly siege on Gaza, in place since 2 March, to avert imminent famine.
Last week, more than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations called for an end to the siege, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff.
Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma also told MEE last week that several of the organisation’s staff fainted on duty due to malnutrition.
Journalists are also affected. AFP journalists’ union last week warned that its members working in Gaza are facing death from starvation, as a result of Israel’s blockade.
