Gaza’s Entire Population Faces Critical Risk of Famine, Global Hunger Monitor Says
GAZA (Dispatches) – The entire population of Gaza faces a critical risk of famine, with half a million Palestinian facing starvation in the enclave, a global hunger monitor said on Monday, calling this a major deterioration since its last report in October, Reuters reports.
The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analyzed a period from April 1 to May 10 this year and projected the situation until the end of September, according to a summary of its key findings.
The occupying regime has sealed off the Gaza Strip since early March when it resumed its devastating military campaign, ending a ceasefire that had been in place since January.
The IPC analysis found that 1.95 million people, or 93 percent of the population in the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave, are living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including 244,000 experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic”, levels.
IPC’s October analysis had said 133,000 people were in the “catastrophic” category.
The IPC analysis projected that 470,000 people, or 22 percent of the population, would fall into the catastrophic category by the end of September, with over a million more at “emergency” levels.
“Urgent action is needed to save lives and avert further starvation, further deaths and a descent into famine,” it said.
The IPC, in a brief accompanying its latest analysis, said a plan announced on May 5 by Israeli occupation authorities to set up militarized zones to deliver aid was “estimated to be highly insufficient to meet the population’s essential needs.”
“The proposed distribution mechanisms are likely to create significant access barriers for large segments of the population,” it added.
‘200 NGOs Reject Israel
Proposals to Disrupt Aid’
More than 200 non-governmental organizations and around 15 UN agencies have rejected the Zionist regime’s proposals aimed at dismantling the existing aid distribution system in Gaza, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The rejection comes after over nine weeks of a complete blockade imposed on Gaza’s population.
In a statement issued on Sunday, OCHA warned of the escalating humanitarian crisis in the besieged Strip. It cited concerns from UNICEF, which said children in Gaza face “a growing risk of starvation, illness and death” as a result of worsening conditions. The agency reported that one-third of UN-supported community kitchens have closed over the past ten days due to severe shortages of food supplies and fuel.
The UN office added that “over 75 percent of households in Gaza report a decline in water access over the past month, amid deteriorating sanitation conditions.”
It further warned that “Gaza’s medical rehabilitation system is on the verge of collapse, strained by a surge in traumatic injuries, damaged infrastructure, and critical shortages of specialists, supplies, and equipment, depriving individuals with disabilities and other vulnerable groups of essential care.”