Israeli siege tipping Gaza into famine, UN panel says

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Nearly half a million Palestinians are starving in Gaza as Israel’s war with Hamas and 71-day siege push the enclave to the edge of a full-blown famine, a UN panel said.

The assessment from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned that nearly every civilian in Gaza — 93 per cent of the population, almost 2mn people — is being pushed closer to the edge of famine. This ranges from conditions it categorises as “in crisis” to “catastrophe”, the last step before famine.

Some 244,000 people — about one in 10 — are already in a food catastrophe, the assessment found. From this week onwards that number is projected to nearly double to 470,000 in the coming months unless conditions rapidly improve.

“The risk of famine is not just possible,” the panel found, but “is increasingly likely” if Israel does not lift its siege and allow crucial humanitarian assistance to enter or ends the war.

“Urgent action is needed to save lives and avert further starvation, further deaths and a descent into famine,” the report found.

The assessment provides a comprehensive overview of a complex — and deeply contested — situation within Gaza.

Reports of malnourishment, especially among children being brought to hospitals, have increased after Israel placed the entire enclave under a full siege on March 2 and then abandoned a ceasefire that had temporarily allowed a surge of food, medicine and other essentials into Gaza.

Israel has justified the siege as necessary to weaken Hamas and force it to release the remaining hostages it had seized during the October 7 2023 attack that triggered the war.

As the siege has progressed, humanitarian agencies have run out of stores to feed people who have been displaced multiple times, leaving them dependent on the UN, World Food Programme and charity organisations such as the World Central Kitchen. In recent weeks, the WFP and WCK have also exhausted their stores.

Speaking from Gaza, Unicef spokesperson Jonathan Crickx said his organisation had treated some 11,000 children for acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year, including 1,200 in February, a figure that tripled to 3,500 in March, the first month after Israel blocked the entry of aid into the territory.

The IPC review warned that, if conditions fail to improve, some 71,000 children under five could face acute malnutrition in the coming months.

Israel’s blockade has led to a shortage of the therapeutic foods needed to treat malnutrition. Crickx said hospitals have mostly run out of the nutritional bars used to prevent and treat malnutrition, forcing them to share “those little bars between several children”.

Among malnourished children he met, he cited the case of 4-year-old Osama, who at 8 kilos was around half his expected weight. Siwar, a 5-month-old girl was only “skin on bones” and was so malnourished she could barely be heard when she cried, he said.

The war has decimated Gaza’s agricultural sector, leaving a population that produced much of its fresh fruit, vegetables and even animal protein completely dependent on food aid, said Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Farm animals have been killed in bombardment or slaughtered for food by hungry Palestinians, with only 4 per cent the number of cattle it had before the war remaining, and 2 per cent of chickens.

Nearly 80 per cent of Gaza’s agricultural land is inaccessible, Bechdol said. Much of it is under the Israeli military’s evacuation orders, at risk of contamination from chemicals and littered with unexploded ordinance, she said.

“The destruction of Gaza’s food systems is unprecedented in recent memory on a global scale,” said Bechdol. “It is the collapse of local food production.”

Compared with Ukraine, where agriculture was disrupted, “Gaza is facing a near total collapse”, she added. “Even if hostilities ceased tomorrow, recovery would be almost impossible without massive, sustained support.”