UN agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience highest level of starvation by mid-July
CAIRO — United Nations agencies warned on Wednesday that more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of famine by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.
The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization say in a joint report that hunger is worsening due to severe restrictions on access to humanitarian aid and the collapse of the world’s local food system. the almost eight-month war between Israel and Hamas.
According to the report, the situation in northern Gaza, which has been surrounded and largely isolated by Israeli forces for months, remains dire. Israel recently opened land border crossings in the north, but they can only accommodate dozens of trucks per day for hundreds of thousands of people.
The Israeli raid on Rafah has now seriously disrupted aid operations in the south. Egypt has refused to open its Rafah crossing with Gaza since Israeli forces seized the Gaza side of it nearly a month ago, instead diverting aid to the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing through Israel.
The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks through Kerem Shalom in recent weeks, but the UN says it is often unable to retrieve aid due to the security situation. It says distribution within Gaza is also severely hampered by ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order and other Israeli restrictions.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world authority on determining the extent of hunger crises, said in March that approximately 677,000 people in Gaza were experiencing Stage 5 hunger, the highest level and the equivalent of famine.
The two UN agencies said in their report on Wednesday that this number could rise to more than 1 million – or almost half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million – by the middle of next month.
“In the absence of a cessation of hostilities and greater access, the impact on the mortality rate and lives of Palestinians now and for generations to come will increase significantly every day, even if famine is avoided in the short term,” the report said. .
A separate group of experts said this on Tuesday it is possible that a famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war and restrictions on humanitarian access have hampered data collection to prove this.
“It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, said of the famine in Gaza.
Last month, the head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said northern Gaza had already been entered “complete famine” but experts at the UN agency later said she was expressing a personal opinion.
An area is said to be in famine when three things happen: twenty percent of households are extremely lacking in food, or are actually going hungry; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they are too thin for their height; and two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die every day from hunger and its complications.
The war began when Hamas and other militants crossed the border into Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostage. According to local health officials, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians. Most of Gaza’s population has fled their homes, often several times, and the offensive has caused widespread destruction.
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