‘Catastrophic levels of hunger’ in Gaza mean famine is imminent, says aid coalition

Famine is imminent in northern Gaza with people suffering “catastrophic levels of hunger”, a coalition of aid groups has warned.

The situation was called “man-made starvation”, as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a group that includes the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, said that 1.1 million people, half of Gaza’s population, faced famine.

“The international community should hang its head in shame for failing to stop it,” Martin Griffiths, the UN top relief coordinator, said on the X social media platform, adding: “We know that once a famine is declared, it is way too late.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, the head of Refugees International and a former Biden administration official said: “In my 25 years as a humanitarian this may be, pound for pound, the grimmest analysis I have ever seen.”

“The famine is now starting. Only question at this point is how much more momentum it will be allowed to develop,” Konyndyk said on X.

The IPC report came as Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa – the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees – said he had been denied entry to Gaza where he was due to work on improving the humanitarian response. Lazzarini said the Israeli authorities prevented him from entering Gaza on Monday. Unrwa, the largest aid organisation working in Gaza, is coordinating aid trucks entering via the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.

“This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity,” Lazzarini wrote on X. “Too much time was wasted, all land crossings must open now. Famine can be averted with political will.”

Also on Monday, Oxfam said Israeli authorities were preventing “a warehouse full of international aid” from reaching the Gaza Strip.

Israel has asked the International Court of Justice not to issue emergency orders for it to step up humanitarian aid to Gaza to address the looming famine, dismissing South Africa’s request to do so as “morally repugnant”.

In a legal filing to the UN’s highest court, made public this week, Israel said it “has real concern for the humanitarian situation and innocent lives, as demonstrated by the actions it has and is taking” in Gaza during the war.

The IPC report named both the intensity of Israeli military operations and the extreme restrictions to humanitarian access into northern Gaza as factors that have propelled its population towards famine in just a few months.

“The entire population in the Gaza Strip (2.23 million) is facing high levels of acute food insecurity,” it said. “Famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur any time between mid-March and May 2024.”

Southern parts of Gaza, it said, would also face a risk of famine in the coming months “in a worst-case scenario”. An Israeli ground offensive on the southernmost town of Rafah, the IPC added, would increase already catastrophic levels of hunger across the entire Gaza Strip.

The UN said last week: “During the first two weeks of March, 12 humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, six were denied, and six were postponed.”

The US, Jordan and other international observers have resorted to dropping in packages of food on parachutes in an attempt to get some aid to northern Gaza, although Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, has warned that airdrops “will do very little to alleviate hunger malnutrition, and do nothing to slow down famine”.

Late last week, the aid organisation World Central Kitchen said it had chartered a ship from Cyprus and had begun to deliver 37m meals to northern Gaza. But the UN said that trucking aid into Gaza has proved the most reliable way to distribute aid. Since the Hamas attacks on 7 October, just a fraction of the 500 trucks carrying food, water and medicines that previously entered each day are permitted to deliver essential goods, while piped water and electricity have been cut off.

The IPC said that dwindling supplies meant “virtually all households are skipping meals every day and adults are reducing their meals so that children can eat”.

In two-thirds of households in northern Gaza, the report said, “people went entire days and nights without eating at least 10 times in the last 30 days. In the southern governorates, this applies to one-third of the households.”

With famine imminent, Oxfam has accused Israeli authorities of doing little to obey the International Court of Justice’s instruction to facilitate relief efforts to 2 million Palestinians. The Israeli government, it said, “ultimately bears accountability for the breakdown of the international response to the crisis in Gaza”.

Oxfam detailed how the Israeli authorities were “arbitrarily rejecting aid items”, claiming they were “dual-use” – civilian goods that could have a military purpose – including torches, batteries and medical supplies.

Related: ‘My period has become a nightmare’: life in Gaza without sanitary products

Essential equipment for humanitarian workers was also being stopped, Oxfam said, including communications equipment, protective vests, armoured cars, generators and prefabricated housing for staff.

There was “no communication about which are items are classified as dual-use”, it said, meaning an entire truckload could be turned away over one item.

“Some items may pass one day and be rejected the next. The list of rejected items is overwhelming and ever-changing,” Oxfam said. In one case, items including water bladders and testing kits for drinking water were rejected with no reason provided, but later allowed to enter.

“Oxfam’s shipment of vital water quality testing equipment has not been able to cross since December,” it said. “Oftentimes when a single item is considered ‘dual-use’ by Israel, the truck is forced to exit the queue. Reloading the truck to be able to enter the inspection line again can take 20 days.”