Famine ‘currently playing out’ in Gaza, UN-backed experts warn

“The worst star scenario currently” warns in the Gaza Strip, and international food security experts have warned unplanned.

An alert from the classification of integrated food security (IPC) says that there is increasing evidence that hunger on a large scale, malnutrition and disease are leading to a rise in hunger -related deaths between 2.1 million Palestinians there.

He adds: “The latest data indicates that the thresholds of famine have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and severe malnutrition in Gaza City.”

UN agencies have already warned of the presence of mass hunger in Gaza, and reported at least 63 deaths related to malnutrition this month. They blamed the crisis in Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies to the region.

“The facts are in – they cannot be denied. The Palestinians in Gaza are boring a human catastrophe with an epic dimensions,” said UN Secretary -General Antonio Guterres.

“This is not a warning. It is a fact that is revealed in front of our eyes. I must become evident aid. Food, water, medicine, and fuel must flow into the waves and without blockage.”

Israel imposed a totally siege on aid and commercial delivery to Gaza at the beginning of March and resumed its military attack against Hamas after two weeks, which led to a two -month ceasefire. She said she wanted to pressure the armed group to release her Israeli hostages.

The siege was partially reduced after 11 weeks, after the Israeli government was under pressure from its allies, but the lack of food, medicine and fuel exacerbated.

Israel insisted that there are no restrictions on the aid surrender and that “there is no hunger.”

However, in the last days of measures aimed at helping the United Nations and its partners it has announced aid from the crossings and distributing them inside Gaza, including daily “tactical stops” in military operations in three areas and dedicated corridors.

IPC says immediate measures must be taken to end hostile actions and allow an indelible, large -scale and saving humanitarian response.

The report is not officially classified as Gaza as a famine, saying that it is only possible through the analysis that will be conducted “without delay.”

IPC – a global initiative by United Nations agencies, relief groups and governments – is the basic mechanism that the international community uses to infer whether the starvation occurs.

Families are classified as the 5th stage of IPC (a disaster) if they suffer from a severe food and hunger deficiency and the confrontation strategies.

In order for the famine to be officially announced in a specific area, there must be evidence of:

• At least 20 % of families in stage 5
• At least 30 % of children suffer from acute malnutrition
• There is death per 10,000 people per day, or four of 10,000 deaths, “due to frank hunger or malnutrition and disease”

In May, IPC warned that Gaza residents are facing high levels of severe food insecurity and that 470,000 people (22 %) are facing “catastrophic” levels, or stage 5.

The IPC alert issued on Tuesday says that the intensification of the bombing of the Israeli army and the expansion of its operations over the past two months had a “devastating effect” on civilians and critical infrastructure.

He adds that the arrival of people to food throughout Gaza has become “irregularly irregular and very risky” during the same period, noting that the United Nations recorded the killing of more than 1,000 people asking for help by the Israeli forces.

IPC says that malnutrition has risen rapidly in the first half of July and reached the threshold of starvation in Gaza City.

The Gaza Nutrition Group – which consists of United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations – said that more than 20,000 children have been accepted in clinics due to acute malnutrition between April and mid -July, with more than 3,000 malnutritions.

Hospitals also reported a rapid increase in hunger -related deaths for children under the age of five, as at least 16 deaths have been reported since July 17.

IPC alerts to take immediate measures to “alleviate catastrophic suffering”.

“This includes increasing the flow of goods, restoring basic services, and ensuring safe, unspecified access to life,” she says.

“Nothing of this is possible unless there was a ceasefire.”

The World Food Program and UNICEF expressed its warning that the threshold of famine – food consumption and acute malnutrition – have been hacked in parts of Gaza.

They warned that collecting strong data on the third threshold – deaths related to hunger – under the current circumstances in Gaza was “very difficult because the health systems, which were already destroyed by three years of conflict, are collapsing.”

On Monday, the Hamas -running Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 14 other people had passed away as a result of malnutrition over the past 24 hours. This has brought the number of deaths related to malnutrition since the war began to 147, including 88 children, according to the ministry.

The World Health Organization also said on Sunday that there are 63 deaths related to malnutrition in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of five. He pointed out that the bodies of most of the dead showed “clear signs of severe waste.”

“The incomparable suffering for the people of Gaza is already clear to the world. Pending the official assertion of famine to provide food aid that is highly needed for the life they need is unreasonable.”

“We need to dump Gaza with large -scale food aid, without hindering directly, and keep them flowing every day to prevent mass hunger. People are already dying because of malnutrition, and the longer we are waiting for the behavior, the number of deaths will rise.”

WFP and Unicf said, “It was barely” what was required by Gaza residents had entered since Israel partially eased the siege, and that more than 62,000 tons of aid – equivalent to about 3,100 trucks – is required every month only to cover the basic human food and nutritional assistance.

At a press conference in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon said that the situation in Gaza was “difficult”, but it was “a lie” that Israel was starving in the intent of the population.

“Who is responsible for this difficult reality? … This is Hamas.” “Whether there is a hunger policy? No, the opposite is true.”

Sar said that 5,000 trucks concerned have entered Gaza over the past two months, and that Israel was making “amazing efforts, including this week, by opening these humanitarian corridors, by Airroprops by any possible means.”

The Israeli military body, which improves the entry of aid to Gaza, said that more than 200 charges were collected from the crossings by the United Nations and other international organizations on Monday, and hundreds of others were waiting for it.

However, Gaza residents said that they had not seen much or without improving food since Israel announced new measures to facilitate the distribution of aid.

“[On Monday] They collected a very small amount of aid in our area. “Thousands of people fought.”

“My children are starving. They didn’t eat one meal for two days. We continue to hear the upcoming aid, but we never see any of them,” he added.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, Bilal Atelh, a 45 -year -old father, said that he spent every Monday waiting for food aid without success.

“I had no choice but to buy the flour from the pigs they stole from the trucks,” he said. “I cost me $ 35 (26 pounds) for 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of flour.”

Other Gaza residents also reported that criminal gangs were intercepting and aid caravans, then reselling supplies at unbearable prices.

Tom Fletcher, the United Nations President Tom Fletcher, said that most of the trucks that entered Gaza on Sunday had been looted, but said it was “by desperate individual civilians.”

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of stealing aid. However, the New York Times cited senior Israeli military officials as saying on Sunday that the army had never found evidence that the armed group systematically stole the United Nations.

Reuters news agency also reported last week that the US government’s internal analysis did not find any evidence of the systematic theft by Hamas from the United States’ aid.

The Israeli army launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas -led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, where about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others took hostage.

At least 60,034 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Ministry of Health in the region.