JERUSALEM — The Gaza Strip is no longer facing famine in any of its regions after humanitarian and commercial food deliveries surged following an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but more than three-quarters of the population, or 1.6 million people, still experience acute food insecurity and malnutrition, the global authority on hunger said Friday.
The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) was the first to be published since the international group of experts declared in August that the Gaza City region was experiencing “man-made” famine as a result of two years of war, displacement and harsh Israeli restrictions on food and other aid. Although the IPC had projected that by September, more than 600,000 people would experience Phase 5, or “catastrophic” levels of starvation and malnutrition, that figure dropped to 100,000 by the end of November after Israel began loosening the flow of aid as part of an Oct. 10 ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States, according to the latest report.
Israel has come under intense international criticism this year for choking the flow of humanitarian aid, which Israeli officials said was being stolen by Hamas fighters and resold, prolonging the conflict. In a statement Friday, the Israeli government said the latest report showed “even the IPC had to admit that there is no famine in Gaza” and criticized the group’s findings as based on incomplete data.
Between “600 and 800 aid trucks enter the Gaza Strip every day, 70 percent of them carrying food — nearly five times more than what the IPC itself said was required for the Strip,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement that criticized the latest IPC report as “deliberately distorted.”
The IPC said that although the nutrition situation has improved since its August report, acute malnutrition is considered “critical,” or Phase 4 in its five-tier classification, in Gaza City and “serious,” or Phase 3, in the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis regions. North Gaza is also believed to be suffering from malnutrition, the report warned, adding that conditions remain severe for the most vulnerable populations.
“Over the next 12 months, across the entire Gaza Strip, nearly 101,000 children aged 6—59 months are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition and require treatment, with more than 31,000 severe cases,” the report found. “During the same period, 37,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women will also face acute malnutrition and require treatment.”
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