By Sam Mednick, Associated Press
Like Aviv, Israel (AP) – The Gaza Strip will probably fall in famine if Israel does not raise its blockade and will not stop its military campaign, food security experts said in a warning on Monday.
Almost half a million Palestinians are faced with a possible famine, living in “catastrophic” hunger levels, and 1 million others can barely obtain enough food, according to the integrated classification of the food security phase, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.
The group said “there is a high risk” of outright famine if the circumstances do not change.
Israel has prohibited all food, shelter, drugs and any other merchandise from entering the Palestinian territory in the last 10 weeks, even if it performs waves of air strikes and ground operations. The Gaza population of approximately 2.3 million people depends almost entirely on external aid to survive, because the 19 -month -old military campaign of Israel has suffered most of the capacities to produce food inside the territory.
Desperate scenes while food runs out
Food supplies are emptying considerably. The municipal kitchens saying cooked meals are practically the only food source remaining for most people in Gaza now, but they too quickly close for lack of stocks.
Thousands of Palestinians launch out daily public kitchens outside, pushing and jostling with their pots to receive lenses or pasta.
“We end up queuing for four, five hours, in the sun. It’s exhausting,” Riham Sheikh El-Eid, who waits in a kitchen in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday. “In the end, we are back without anything. This is not enough for everyone. ”
The absence of a declaration of famine does not mean that people do not die of hunger, and a declaration should not be a prerequisite at the end of the suffering, said Chris Newton, analyst of the international crisis group focusing on famine as a war.
“The Israeli government Gaza in the context of its attempt to destroy Hamas and transform the band,” he said.
Israel is asking for a new help system
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a request for comments. The army said that enough aid had entered Gaza during a two-month ceasefire that Israel broke in mid-March when it relaunched its military campaign.
Israel says that the blockade aims to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages it holds. He indicates that he will not help to help it until a new system giving him the control of the distribution is in place, accusing Hamas of siphoning supplies. The United States claims that this works a new mechanism that will soon start deliveries, but it has not given a delay.
The United Nations has so far refused to participate. He denies a substantial diversion of aid takes place and says that the new system is not necessary, will not meet the massive needs of the Palestinians and will allow the help of being used as a weapon for political and military objectives.
The Monday report said that a slight gains made during the ceasefire had been reversed. Almost the whole population of Gaza is now faced with high levels of hunger, he said, trained by conflicts, the collapse of infrastructure, the destruction of agriculture and the aid blockages.
Mahmoud Alsaqqa, coordinator of food security and livelihoods for Oxfam, called on governments to press Israel to allow “unhindered humanitarian access”.
“Silence in the face of this armed famine is a bond,” he said.
Israel has promised to destroy Hamas after the group’s surprise attack on Israel, in which activists killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and took 251 hostages, most of whom were released in cease-fire agreements or other agreements.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, including more than half of women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, whose count does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.
Three criteria to declare famine
The integrated classification of the food security phase was set up for the first time in 2004 during famine in Somalia, groups of more than a dozen United Nations, aid groups, governments and other bodies.
He only declared famine a few times – in Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of the West Darfur region of Sudan. Tens of thousands of people have died in Somalia and South Sudan.
He assesses an area as in famine when at least two of the three things happen: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food or are essentially hungry; At least 30% of children from six months to five years old suffer from acute malnutrition or waste, which means that they are too thin for their size; And at least two or four children of less than five people for 10,000 people die daily due to famine or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
The evaluation revealed on Monday that the first threshold was reached in Gaza, saying that 477,000 people – or 22% of the population – are classified as in “catastrophic” hunger, the highest level, for the period of May 11 at the end of September.
He said that more than a million people are at “emergency” hunger levels, the second highest level, which means they have “very high gaps” in food and high acute malnutrition.
The other thresholds have not been reached. The data was collected in April until May 6. Food security experts say that people take time to start starving.
The report indicates that if the blockade and the military campaign continue, “the vast majority” in Gaza will not have access to food or water, civil disorders will worsen, the health services “will be fully collapsing”, the disease will spread and the levels of malnutrition and death will cross thresholds in famine.
He also warned of “imminent” famine in northern Gaza in March 2024, but the following month, Israel granted an influx of assistance under pressure from the United States after an Israeli strike killed seven humanitarian workers.
Help groups now say that the situation is the most disastrous of the whole war. The United Nations Humanitarian Bureau, known as OCHA, said on Friday that the number of children looking for treatments in malnutrition clinics had doubled since February, even if the supplies to treat them are quickly exhausted.
Aid groups have closed food distribution for lack of stocks. Many foods have disappeared from the markets and what remains has rooted the price and is unaffordable for the most part. Agricultural land is mainly destroyed or inaccessible. The distribution of water stops, largely because of the lack of fuel.
Beth Bechdol, deputy director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said that more than 75% of Gaza agricultural land had been damaged or destroyed, and that two thirds of the wells used for irrigation no longer worked.
The destruction, she said, “stimulates this large number of people closer to the figures for famine which, in our view, are possible”.
The correspondents AP Wafaa Shurafa in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Samy Magdy in Beirut contributed to this report.
