A global hunger watchdog has warned that famine is already unfolding across the Gaza Strip, as conditions deteriorate and international pressure mounts on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid in.
“The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in an alert released on Tuesday, Reuters reported. “Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths.”
While the IPC has not formally declared a famine, it confirmed it would begin an immediate assessment.
The organisation, made up of UN agencies, humanitarian bodies and aid groups, defines famine based on extreme hunger indicators, including at least 20 percent of the population facing critical food shortages, acute malnutrition in one-third of children, and two deaths per 10,000 people per day from hunger or related illnesses.
According to the IPC, recent data shows that food consumption thresholds consistent with famine have already been breached across most of Gaza. Acute malnutrition rates have also spiked, particularly in Gaza City.
“Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response,” the IPC warned. “This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, said in a separate statement that waiting for an official famine declaration risks repeating past tragedies. “By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people, half of them children under five, had already died,” he said. “By the time famine is declared [in Gaza], it will already be too late.”