Only an immediate stop to the fighting, a massive increase in humanitarian assistance and the return of basic services can keep the number of deaths caused by hunger and disease from eclipsing the already shocking numbers of those killed in the war to date.
"The civilian population is increasingly desperate. We have received reports of people eating animal food, including hay, straw and other feed fit for cattle, goats and sheep," Vincent Stehli, Action Against Hunger's director of operations, said in a statement.
The Humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger said several other countries also have "very concerning levels of hunger". These include Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
"It's a technical term that sort of encapsulates a series of conditions," said Tobias Stillman, Action Against Hunger's director of technical services and innovation. "So very significant food insecurity, meaning people don't have sufficient food to support their physiological need ... so they are both experiencing hunger and physiologically in many cases, compensating for the lack of food."
“The resolution has not been a game changer, but it has raised the political profile of hunger,” said Michelle Brown, associate director of advocacy at Action Against Hunger.
Action Against Hunger calls for immediate ceasefire as 80% of Gaza faces dire famine conditions, with humanitarian efforts hampered by bombardment and blockade.
The risk of famine in Gaza is “imminent” according to one new assessment published Monday March 18 by the Integrated Food Security Classification Framework (IPC), a partnership between international agencies (World Food Program, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – FAO –, Unicef, World Bank, etc.) and non-governmental organizations (Action Against Hunger, Care, Oxfam, etc.), responsible for assessing the most acute food crises.
The Gaza Strip faces unprecedented disease outbreaks this summer caused by piles of uncollected waste rotting in the heat, fuelling further misery for residents already suffering from food shortages, according to Action Against Hunger.
“The combination of incessant shelling, shortages of food, water, fuel, and the inability of humanitarian agencies to operate in Gaza has caused this desperate situation,” said Chiara Saccardi, Regional Head of Action Against Hunger in the Middle East via a statement on December 21st.
Parts of Gaza are at high risk of famine according to a new report released today, which classified 378,000 people as facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.”
Israel launched a new assault against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip which began officially on October 7, 2023. In this assault, Israel's occupation army, with full political coverage, targeted all infrastructure installations in Gaza, especially the health sector which was singled out in a systematic and unprecedented manner, indicating the existence of a preconceived Israeli plan to destroy the heath infrastructure in the northern part of the Strip to make it unlivable and to drive its population southwards (the plan had originally envisaged their expulsion to Egypt but when this fell through it was decided to drive that population to central and southern Gaza). This deliberate and systematic targeting campaign vented itself in the indiscriminate bombing of urban quarters and high-rise residential towers in order to butcher the largest number of civilians and to systematically destroy all health facilities, with a view to forcing the population to head southwards where health facilities and medical emergency services had already far exceeded their absorption capacities. Read more
