Gaza City: UN-backed experts warned that a worst-case scenario famine is now unfolding in Gaza that cannot be reversed unless humanitarian groups get immediate and unimpeded access. The announcement came as health authorities in the Hamas-run territory reported over 60,000 fatalities due to Israel’s nearly two-year offensive, which was ignited by the militant group’s 2023 attack.
According to Nam News Network, the Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) stated that recent air-drops over Gaza, announced by various countries, would not suffice to avert the humanitarian catastrophe. UN humanitarian agencies have expressed that Gaza is on the brink of a full-scale famine, urging donors to provide large-scale food aid immediately and without obstruction.
Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2 following the breakdown of ceasefire talks. Although a trickle of aid was allowed to resume in late May, warnings of widespread starvation persist. The IPC’s latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached in most of Gaza, with hunger-related deaths of young children escalating rapidly.
More than 20,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with over 3,000 classified as severely malnourished. Since July 17, at least 16 children under five have died from hunger, according to the IPC. Evidence is mounting that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are contributing to a rise in hunger-related deaths.
On Sunday, Israel declared a tactical pause in military operations in parts of Gaza, allowing over 120 truckloads of food into the region, while countries like Jordan and the UAE have conducted food air-drops. However, the IPC cautioned that air-drops, besides posing risks to civilians, are inadequate to reverse the humanitarian crisis. Delivering food by road is deemed more effective, safer, and faster. It emphasized that the most vulnerable, including children suffering from acute malnutrition, require consistent life-saving treatment to recover.
Following the IPC’s alert, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that time is running out in Gaza. FAO Director General Qu Dongyu remarked that people are starving not due to a lack of food availability but because access is obstructed, asserting that the right to food is a fundamental human right.
Speaking in Geneva, WFP’s emergency director Ross Smith compared the humanitarian disaster to last century’s famines in Ethiopia and Nigeria’s Biafra region, noting the unprecedented scale of the crisis in this century. The IPC is currently working on a new analysis to urgently publish updated figures on the situation in Gaza.