AP – The head of the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) said northern Gaza has entered “full-blown famine”. But a formal, and highly sensitive, famine declaration faces the complications of politics and of confirming how many people have died.
Cindy McCain in an NBC interview broadcast last Sunday said severe Israeli restrictions on humanitarian deliveries to the territory that has long relied on outside food assistance have pushed civilians in the most isolated, devastated part of Gaza over the brink. Famine was now moving south in Gaza, she said.
A WFP spokesman later told The Associated Press that one of the three benchmarks for a formal famine declaration has already been met in northern Gaza and another is nearly met – important details on how far the effort to document deadly hunger has progressed.
Israel faces mounting pressure from top ally the United States (US) and others to let more aid into Gaza, notably by opening more land crossings for the most efficient delivery by truck.
Aid groups say deliveries by air and sea by the US and other countries cannot meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, a growing number of them reaching the stage of malnutrition where a child’s growth is stunted and deaths occur.
Famine had been projected in parts of Gaza this month in a March report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global initiative that includes WFP as a partner.
It said nearly a third of Gaza’s population was experiencing the highest level of catastrophic hunger, and that could rise to nearly half by July.
The next IPC report is expected in July. Israel strongly rejects any claims of famine in Gaza, and its humanitarian agency called McCain’s assertion incorrect. A formal declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide in a case brought by South Africa.
WHAT A FAMINE MEANS
According to the IPC, an area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20 per cent of households have an extreme lack of food, or essentially starving; at least 30 per cent of children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.
In northern Gaza, the first condition of extreme lack of food has been met, senior WFP spokesman Steve Taravella told The Associated Press. The second condition of child acute malnutrition is nearly met, he said. But the death rate could not be verified.
Doing so is difficult. Aid groups note that Israeli airstrikes and raids have devastated medical facilities in northern Gaza and displaced much of the population. Along with restrictions on access, they complicate the ability to formally collect data on deaths.
A document explaining famine published in March by the IPC noted, however, that an area can be classified as “famine with reasonable evidence” if two of the three thresholds have been reached and analysts believe from available evidence that the third likely has been reached.
“The bottom line is that people are practically dying from a lack of food, water and medicines. If we are waiting for the moment when all the facts are in hand to verify the final conditions to scientifically declare a famine, it would be after thousands of people have perished,” Taravella said.
