A high risk of famine persists in the whole Gaza Strip — home to over 2 million people — if Israel’s ongoing military offensive continues, according to an international early warning system.
The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis found that almost the entire population will continue to face high levels of acute food insecurity through September 2024, as one in every five Gazans go day and night without eating.
The IPC, an internationally recognized assessment method, uses a five-point scale to classify food insecurity. The highest is Phase 5: Catastrophe or Famine.
Phase 5 means people experience an extreme lack of food, starvation and exhaustion of coping capacities leading to malnutrition and mortality. Coping strategies include skipping meals, picking up trash to sell or exchanging clothes for money — something that more than half of the households in Gaza were forced to do in the past month in order to buy food.
The previous forecast, published in March, warned of imminent famine in the northern governorates, and “catastrophic” consequences for 1.1 million people if Israel launched a ground offensive against Rafah — where most civilians sought refuge and the main humanitarian aid crossing is.
According to new data, the amount of food deliveries to Gaza’s northern governorates increased between March and April, which “appear to have temporarily alleviated conditions” and averted famine in the area — though it remains at high risk.
However, the situation has now worsened in the south of the Palestinian enclave, where since early May over a million people have been forcibly displaced following Israel’s ongoing invasion of Rafah.
“Humanitarian access to the two million people in the southern governorates has notably reduced with the closure of the Rafah border crossing and disruptions to the Kerem Shalom crossing,” the report notes.
In addition, concentration of displaced populations into so-called humanitarian zones with little to no essential infrastructure and services — like water or sanitation — “increases the risk of disease outbreaks, which would have catastrophic effects on the nutritional and health status of large segments of the population.”
The report also notes that around 60 percent of buildings across the Gaza Strip, including dwellings, shops, hospitals and schools, were damaged or destroyed.
Nearly nine months into Israel’s bombardment and siege of the enclave, humanitarian access also continues to shrink, as “the ability to safely deliver assistance to populations is dwindling,” experts warn. “Should this continue, the improvements seen in April could be rapidly reversed.”
According to the latest Humanitarian Situation Update issued by the U.N. office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA), aid organizations continue to face obstacles to consistently and safely bring food, medicine and other life-saving aid through Kerem Shalom and the Rafah crossings. At least 273 U.N. staff have been killed since the beginning of the hostilities, making Gaza the deadliest place for aid workers.
“We are confronted with a near total breakdown of law and order. Truck drivers [are] being regularly threatened and assaulted, and less and less are willing to move assistance from the border to our warehouses,” said the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) head Philippe Lazzarini during a press conference on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it would suspend fighting along a road in the south of the Gaza Strip during certain hours to allow aid deliveries to reach Palestinians enduring a humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s offensive, while the U.N. Security Council approved a U.S. resolution for a Gaza cease-fire two weeks ago.
More than 37,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed since Israel launched its invasion of the Gaza Strip last October, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel began its military operation in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead and saw about 250 taken hostage.
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