MONITORING (SW) – Famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 70% of the population are already suffering with catastrophic levels of hunger, a UN-backed report said Monday, as the EU’s top diplomat accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war.”
All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north “anytime between mid-March and May 2024,” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Acute hunger and malnutrition have already “far exceeded” the threshold for famine in northern Gaza and the IPC warns of a “major acceleration of death and malnutrition.”
This is the “the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded… anywhere, anytime,” by the IPC, said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
At least 25 people, including children and babies, have died from starvation and dehydration in the north, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. People have resorted to scavenging, eating grass and animal feed, and drinking polluted water. Starving mothers are unable to produce enough milk to feed their babies and parents beg for infant formula at overwhelmed health facilities, parents and doctors told CNN.
The crisis has been described as “entirely man-made” and “preventable” due to Israel’s throttling of aid and widespread destruction of Gaza. The report said famine conditions will spread unless there is an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and full aid access granted to the strip.
“People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain.
“There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead.”
The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war,” saying the famine was “not a natural disaster” but caused by Israel “preventing humanitarian support entering into Gaza.”
Hundreds of trucks were waiting at the border and being prevented entry into Gaza by Israel, he said.
“The support is there waiting. Trucks are stopped, people are dying,” Borrell said. Aid delivery by sea and air was only necessary because the “natural” way of delivering aid by land was “artificially closed” by Israel, he added.
The World Food Programme estimates that at least 300 trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day and distribute food to meet only the basic hunger needs. The UN agency has only managed to take nine convoys into northern Gaza since the start of the year, it said in a statement.
A ceasefire remains the only way for agencies such as the WFP to “roll out a massive relief operation reaching all the communities in need,” it said.
