The UN confirmed on Friday that famine is underway in the Gaza Governorate and is expected to spread to Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younès by the end of September.
According to a report released at a press conference in Geneva, 500,000 people are in a catastrophic state.
Conditions in northern Gaza are estimated to be as severe, if not worse, than in Gaza City. However, limited data prevented an IPC classification, highlighting the urgent need for access.
Israel is blocking most humanitarian aid from the United Nations and its partners, and has entrusted the distribution of food to an Israeli-American organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been heavily criticised for its methods. Since July, food and humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza have increased slightly, but they remain largely insufficient, irregular and inaccessible in relation to needs.
Urgent need for an immediate response
Several UN agencies have collectively and systematically emphasised the extreme urgency of an immediate and large-scale humanitarian response, given the increase in hunger-related deaths, the rapid worsening of acute malnutrition levels and the dramatic drop in food consumption levels, with hundreds of thousands of people going several days without eating.
A man-made disaster
“This is not a mystery — it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself. Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival. People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement.
“As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law – including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.”
Briefing journalists on Friday at UN headquarters in Geneva, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said it was a famine that could have been prevented “if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”
A ceasefire ‘now’
“No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow — it is now. We need an immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, and full, unfettered humanitarian access,” said Secretary-General António Guterres.
The UN defines famine according to the following criteria: at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two people out of every 10,000 dying every day of starvation or from the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
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