The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared a state of famine in Gaza on Friday amid an escalating humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian enclave. Photo by Mahmoud Issa/UPI | License Photo
The top global hunger monitoring agency Friday declared a famine affecting more than half a million people in a part of Gaza that includes Gaza City as Israeli forces laid siege to the city in an effort to pressure Hamas ahead of negotiations to release hostages in exchange for a cease-fire.
Famine had been confirmed with the number of people affected a little under 514,000, out of a total population of 2 million, with that number forecast to rise to 641,000 by the end of September, according to a report by the Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
People affected were facing “starvation, destitution and death.”
The IPC’s definition of famine is when at least 20% of households in a defined area are facing an extreme lack of food, acute malnutrition affects at least 30% of children and the daily death toll from starvation reaches a minimum threshold of two adults, or four children, per 10,000 head of population.
However, the IPC said that, due to a lack of data, it had to use an alternate measure to arrive at its conclusion, which is met when 15% of children were suffering from acute malnutrition based on the circumference of their mid-upper arm, together with other underlying evidence.
The IPC said it also projected conditions it described as “catastrophic” would spread southwards to the Deir al Balah and Khan Younis areas during the same timeframe if the humanitarian situation did not improve.
“Famine is a race against time. An immediate cease-fire and end to the conflict is critical to enabling an unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response to save lives,” it added.
Israel denied there was a famine in Gaza and accused the IPC of faking the report, altering its methodology to suit its anti-Israel bias.
Friday’s announcement was only the fourth time the organization, which is backed by the United Nations and 19 other intergovernmental bodies and NGOs, had declared famine in its more than two-decade-long history.
Humanitarian groups and global health agencies, including the United Nations, World Food Program and World Health Organization, said they had been expecting the news.
“Just when it seems there are no words left to describe the living hell in Gaza, a new one has been added: ‘famine’. This is not a mystery — it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival. People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing,” he said.
Guterres said international law was absolutely clear on Israel’s obligation to ensure food and medical supplies for the population.
“A cease-fire is an absolute and moral imperative now. The world has waited too long, watching tragic and unnecessary deaths mount from this man-made famine,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
But U.S. and Israeli officials condemned the report, with the foreign ministry in Jerusalem alleging it was a “fabricated report to Hamas’ fake campaign,” while Mike Huckabee, the United States’ Ambassador to Israel, drew attention to the starvation being endured by Israeli hostages.
“Maybe the overfed terrorists could share some of their warehouse full they stole with hungry people, especially the hostages,” he said.
However, the World Peace Foundation told the BBC that the method to determine famine that the IPC used was accepted standard practice and was not a “lowered or new threshold.”
“Israel won’t permit humanitarian data collection and then complains about the quality of the data,” said WPF executive director Alex de Waal.
