Famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where 70% of the population already suffers from catastrophic levels of food insecurity, a UN-backed report said on Monday (18), while the European Union's top diplomat accuses Israel of using “the hunger as a weapon of war.”
All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, half the population is on the brink of starvation and famine is expected to reach the north of the territory “anytime between mid-March and May 2024,” according to with the Integrated Food Safety Phase Classification (IPC).
Acute hunger and malnutrition have already “far exceeded” the famine threshold in northern Gaza and the IPC warns of a “great acceleration of death and malnutrition”.
This is “the largest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded anywhere, at any time” by the IPC, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
At least 25 people, including children and babies, died of hunger and dehydration in the north, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
People resorted to collecting garbage, consuming grass and animal feed, and drinking polluted water.
Hungry mothers can't produce enough milk to feed their babies and parents are begging for infant formula at overburdened health facilities, parents and doctors told CNN .
The crisis has been described as “entirely man-made” and “preventable” due to Israel’s strangulation of aid and the widespread destruction of Gaza.
The report states that famine conditions will spread unless there is an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and full access to aid is granted to the strip.
“People in Gaza are starving right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has spread across Gaza is frightening,” said the executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), Cindy McCain.
“There is a very small window left to avoid a total famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine is declared, it will be too late. Thousands more will be dead.”
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, accused Israel of using “hunger as a weapon of war”, saying the famine was “not a natural disaster” but caused by Israel “blocking humanitarian support from entering Gaza”.
Hundreds of trucks wait at the border and have been blocked from entering Gaza by Israel, he said.
“The support is there waiting. Trucks are stopped, people are dying,” said Borrell.
The delivery of aid 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 Program estimates that at least 300 trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day and distribute food to satisfy just the basic hunger needs.
The UN agency has only managed to take nine convoys to northern Gaza since the beginning of the year, it said in a statement.
A ceasefire remains the only way for agencies like the WFP “to launch a massive aid operation that reaches all communities in need,” he said.
Source: CNN Brasil

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