The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has issued an emergency warning that Gaza is now entering the “worst-case scenario” of famine and starvation.
Gaza has officially entered what experts have labelled as a “famine”, as food consumption has fallen below the required threshold.
With no end in sight to the intensifying bombardment of Gaza, the forced displacement, and the restricted access to food, IPC has labelled this “the worst-case scenario of famine”.
“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC said in a new report.
The month of July saw a sharp increase in cases of malnutrition, with the report finding that over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July.
In addition to this, the report found that over 3,000 children are severely malnourished and at risk of hunger-related deaths.
Hospitals have also said that there has been a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children aged under five, adding that since July 17 there have been 16 reported deaths.
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The IPC stressed that, “Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”
The crisis doesn’t just stop at starvation and lack of food, but the report also found that since May 27, over 1,000 starving Palestinians have been killed while trying to access food.
How do experts propose an end to the crisis?
According to Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA in Gaza, aid organisations need to be bringing at least 500-600 aid trucks to Gaza every day – equipped with food, medicine, fuel, hygiene products, and other important supplies.
The number currently being let into Gaza under Israeli measures is a fifth of that.
“They need to be expanded and they need to be sustained and they need to be accompanied by a ceasefire, because that is the only thing that is going to stabilise conditions for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of desperate people in Gaza,” Rose said to Al Jazeera.
The main goal of the IPC is to provide decision-makers within situations like the Gaza crisis with detailed evidence and analyses of food insecurity, so that emergency responses can be put in place.
IPC’s recent report aims to help kickstart the programming of medium to long-term policies that can end, or at least ease the crisis.
Israel’s history of blockade in Gaza
The Israeli blockade of Gaza has been ongoing for 18 years, with a complete blockade on the movement of goods in and out of the besieged strip.
When Hamas won the elections in 2007 and took over Gaza, Israel intensified its existing restrictions.
That same year, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was also closed, which human rights groups have described as an illegal blockade.
Today, the blockade has reached a critical stage with experts saying that the starvation cannot be reversed with simple aid distribution.
Israel has meticulously engineered starvation as a weapon of war which constitutes as a war crime under international law.
