The experts say famine is in the works for Northern Gaza
The Gaza Food Crisis: Exhibit A for the Needs for an Instant Humanitarian Non-Famine,’ Secretary General Antonio Guterres said
The report found that Gazans are skipping meals because of the short supply of food. According to the organization, there has been a rise in the number of young children that are acutely malnourished in northern Gaza.
Last December, the group found that famine could occur within six months in Gaza unless fighting stopped immediately and more humanitarian supplies made it into the territory. “Since then, the conditions necessary to prevent famine have not been met,” the latest report said.
The group said that continued fighting and aid organizations’ lack of access to northern Gaza, the first part of the territory that Israeli forces invaded in October, have worsened the vulnerability of the 300,000 Palestinian civilians who remain there.
According to the group’s classifications, a famine is classified by three conditions: when at least 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food; at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and at least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die daily from starvation or from disease linked to malnutrition.
The organization launched a system of evidence-based analysis of hunger two decades ago. In the years since 2004, it has only classified famine once in South Sudan and once in Somalia.
This is a man-made disaster, and the report shows that it can be stopped. Today’s report is Exhibit A for the needs for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Monday in response to the findings.
Videos captured by media in recent weeks have shown people scrambling to get food on the rare occasions that aid trucks appear. In some cases, convoys have erupted into scenes of chaos. In February, more than 100 Palestinians were killed after crowds rushed an aid convoy in Gaza City. Israeli officials admitted that soldiers fired on the crowd in a threatening way but that others were run over by trucks and killed.
Aid agencies say the quickest way to avert hunger is for Israel to open more border crossings with Gaza and let more relief in. Israel says it is not putting any limitations on humanitarian aid, but only one Israeli crossing into Gaza is currently open, and Israeli inspections on aid trucks and the lack of security in Gaza have made deliveries increasingly difficult.
The situation has pushed desperate Palestinians to take drastic measures to feed themselves and their families. Umm Mohammed al-Hamarna, a grandmother in Gaza City told NPR that she’s foraging for leafy herbs to make soup, that she can’t find baby formula for her grandson and prices for items that are available are too high.
During a raid on Al-Shi Fa Hospital in Gaza, the Israeli military says it has killed Fa’aq Mabbah. Israeli authorities identified Mabhouh as Hamas’ head of internal security. The Government Media Office in Gaza said Mabhouh was in charge of the coordination between tribes and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to bring humanitarian aid into northern Gaza.
A World Food Programme Perspective on Gaza: The Emergency Plan and the Humans’ Role at the Crossing of the Gazan Road and Sea
According to Arif Husain, the chief economist at the World Food Programme, Gaza needs about 300 trucks a day to get food, water and medicine.
It is sustained through all the different border crosses by road and sea, and it is a very regular occurrence. I think we can save thousands of lives, but not hundreds of them.
