Mass deaths from famine looms in Gaza

Famine may already be happening in northern Gaza, and it risks spreading across the enclave by July, plunging 2.2 million Palestinians into the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world, a new report said Monday.

Malnutrition and food insecurity have probably exceeded famine levels in Gaza’s north, and hunger-linked death rates were likely to do so soon, the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said.

The report outlined a devastating situation with up to half the population of Gaza — 1.1 million people — facing catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation between now and July. The most immediately affected areas are in the northern regions, which Israeli forces cut off from the enclave’s southern half and which only a trickle of aid has been able to enter.

Compared with the IPC’s previous analysis in December, acute food insecurity in the Gaza Strip has deepened and widened, with nearly twice as many people projected to suffer those conditions by July.

More than 13,000 children have died since the bombardment began on 7 October 2023. Thousands more have been injured. Many surviving children have lost one or both parents and are struggling to care for their younger siblings.

“This is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system — anywhere, anytime,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday.

The report said the number of children suffering from severe malnutrition continues to rise sharply as adequate access to food and safe water dwindles.

“I think these numbers that we’re seeing out of Gaza are just staggering — an astronomically horrifying number,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world.”

Some 300,000 have been cut off by fighting in northern Gaza.

The European Union accused Israel on Monday of provoking famine and using starvation as a weapon of war – claims that Israel rejects, saying it does not target civilians and is only interested in eliminating the militant Islamist movement Hamas.

All households skipping meals

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report released Monday showed that conditions are ripe for famine to occur in the northern governorates of Gaza and North Gaza anytime between mid-March and May 2024.

When famine unfolds, the report said, children face the greatest risk of experiencing severe food deprivation, severe malnutrition and severe threat of dying.

According to the latest data, virtually all households are skipping meals every day and adults are reducing their meals so that children can eat. In the northern governorates, in nearly two-thirds of all households, people went entire days and nights without eating at least 10 times in the past 30 days. In the southern governorates, this applies to one-third of the households, the report said.

In northern Gaza, UNICEF screenings found acute malnutrition among children under 5 has jumped from 13 per cent to as high as 25 per cent

Nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners in the north in February found that 4.5 per cent of the children in shelters and health centres suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, which puts children at highest risk of medical complications and death unless they receive urgent therapeutic feeding and treatment, which is not available.

Similarly, the prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in the north has increased from 13 per cent in January to as high as 25 per cent. At least 23 children in northern Gaza have reportedly died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks.

“The speed at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis in Gaza has unfolded is shocking, especially when desperately needed assistance has been at the ready just a few miles away,” Forbes Magazine quoted Ms Russell to have said on 15 March.

“We have repeatedly attempted to deliver additional aid and we have repeatedly called for the access challenges we have faced for months to be addressed. Instead, the situation for children is getting worse by each passing day. Our efforts in providing lifesaving aid are being hampered by unnecessary restrictions, and those are costing children their lives.”

UNICEF is calling for increased access and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

“We are doing everything we can to avert a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it is not enough,” Ms Russell said.

“An immediate humanitarian ceasefire continues to provide the only chance to save children’s lives and end their suffering. We also need multiple land border crossings that allow aid to be reliably delivered at scale, including to northern Gaza, along with the security assurances and unimpeded passage needed to distribute that aid, without delays or access impediments.”

The IPC report uses a complex set of technical criteria. Its most extreme warning is Phase 5, which has two levels, catastrophe and famine.

Famine is assessed in this case with at least 20 per cent of the population suffering from extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

In northern Gaza, “the upward trend in non-trauma mortality is also expected to accelerate, resulting in all famine thresholds likely to be passed imminently,” the IPC said.

Without a significant and immediate increase in deliveries of food, water and other essential supplies, conditions will continue deteriorating, the report warned.

The current situation will have long-term effects on the lives and health of thousands. Right now, children are dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease.

Malnutrition makes people more vulnerable to getting severely ill, experiencing slow recovery, or dying when they are infected with a disease.

The long-term effects of malnutrition, low consumption of nutrient-rich foods, repeated infections, and lack of hygiene and sanitation services slow children’s overall growth. This compromises the health and well-being of an entire future generation.

The report concluded, however, that famine can be halted and it requires urgent and proactive measures from parties to the conflict and the international community.

“They must immediately curb the rapidly escalating hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip, garner political support to put an end to the hostilities, mobilize necessary resources and ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”

It also advised the restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip.

“Stop the fast-paced deterioration of the food security, health and nutrition situation leading to excess mortality through the restoration of health, nutrition, and WASH services and the protection of civilians; and the provision of safe, nutritious, and sufficient food to all the population in need.

“The sustained supply of sufficient aid commodities, including but not limited to food, medicines, specialist nutrition products, fuel, and other necessities should be allowed to enter and move throughout the entire Gaza Strip by road. Traffic of commercial goods should also be fully resumed to meet the volume of commodities required,” the report said.

The crisis in Gaza started following the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas militants which led to the death of over 1,000 people, mostly civilians. In retaliation, Israel has continued to attack Gaza and has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.