Gaza: UN warns of ‘catastrophic famine situation’ close to famine

One in two residents of the Gaza Strip is experiencing a catastrophic food situation, UN specialized agencies warned on Monday. Especially in the north, where famine will break out by May if “urgent” measures are not taken. Overall, more than 1.1 million Gazans faced a “catastrophic famine situation” close to famine, “the highest number ever recorded” by the UN.

In the latest Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) report, published in December, the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) consider famine “likely” by the end of May in the northern Gaza Strip. These same organizations estimate that this will happen “any time before May” if nothing is done to prevent it.

“Without changes in access to humanitarian aid, famine will set in,” warns FAO Deputy Director-General Bert Bechdol in an interview with AFP. “Perhaps it is already rampant in the North, but we have not yet been able to verify this,” she notes, “due to the lack of access to the relevant territories.

The IASC criteria for declaring famine have not technically been met, but “residents of the Gaza Strip are already dying of hunger,” warns WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain in a press release. WFP estimates that in the north, one in three children suffers from malnutrition, and “acute malnutrition among children under five is rising at a record rate.”

Now an “open air cemetery”

In the Gaza Strip, “we are no longer on the brink of famine, we are faced with a famine that is affecting thousands of people,” European diplomacy chief Josep Borrell denounced Thursday in a speech to a European humanitarian aid forum, referring to the Palestinian enclave as “a graveyard under open sky.” However, “hundreds of trucks” carrying “a month’s supplies” of food and humanitarian aid are waiting in vain to enter the Gaza Strip due to a lack of permission from Israeli authorities. It is “unacceptable” and “hunger is being used as a weapon of war,” he condemned again, as he did last week before the United Nations in New York.

The destruction in the Gaza Strip is enormous, and humanitarian aid is arriving little by little. According to the non-governmental organization Oxfam, 2,874 trucks entered the territory in February, or “only 20% of the daily aid” received until October 7. According to WFP, there is still a “narrow window” to prevent famine. To do this, “we need immediate and unrestricted access to the north. If we wait until the famine is declared, it will be too late, thousands more people will die,” said Cindy McCain.

A quick “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” would allow “enough food, medicine and drinking water to be delivered” to these areas to avoid famine, Bert Bechdol adds, but a cessation of fighting is “unlikely in the coming days or weeks.”

According to the WFP, “at least 300 trucks a day” will need to be delivered to Gaza to meet basic food needs, especially in the north, where only nine aid convoys have been able to move since the start of the war. ‘year. The last 18 food aid trucks arrived in Gaza City on Sunday evening. But this maritime humanitarian corridor opened from Cyprus does not change the situation, according to Bert Bechdol.