Gaza has passed two grim landmarks in a single day, as UN-backed hunger experts warned a “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding in the territory, shortly before health officials announced the death toll from Israeli attacks had passed 60,000. With more than 145,000 others injured, nearly one in 10 Palestinians who lived in Gaza two years ago has become a casualty of the war. The majority of those killed were civilians, including over 18,000 children.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in an alert that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out, calling for an urgent ceasefire to alleviate widespread starvation. The report said survivors face a famine caused by Israel blocking food aid and relentless conflict. “Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering,” the IPC stated.
Malnutrition has killed 79 people in Gaza over the last week, more than in the previous 21 months of conflict, according to health authorities there. Experts in food security and doctors in Gaza say this is likely a conservative estimate. The World Food Programme (WFP) emergency director Ross Smith described the famine as the most severe hunger crisis the world has faced for decades. “This is unlike anything we have seen in this century. It reminds us of previous disasters in Ethiopia or Biafra in the past century,” he said.
Israel has repeatedly limited aid trucks reaching Gaza during 22 months of war, and halted shipments entirely for six weeks at the start of the war, and between March and mid-May this year. The government has pursued a campaign of starvation despite pressure from its allies and repeated emergency orders from the International Court of Justice. The IPC alert does not formally classify Gaza as being in famine, but data confirms two of three thresholds have been met: extreme food shortages and child malnutrition. Most of Gaza has crossed the food consumption threshold, with one in three individuals going without food for days at a time. Child malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, reaching the famine threshold in Gaza City, with at least 16 hunger-related deaths of children under five since 17 July.
Between April and mid-July, more than 20,000 children were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition, 3,000 of them severely malnourished. The third core indicator, starvation-related deaths, is increasingly common, even if still formally below the famine threshold, according to WFP. Cindy McCain, the WFP executive director, said: “The unbearable suffering of the people of Gaza is already clear for the world to see. Waiting for official confirmation of famine to provide life-saving food aid they desperately need is unconscionable.”
Gaza may already have crossed the mortality threshold. A Canadian doctor working in Gaza, Tarek Loubani, said malnourishment affected everyone he treated, but starvation was only listed as a cause of death for people without other health problems. “The figures are very, very conservative. Right now every single one of my patients is malnourished,” he said. The official toll of 60,000 dead also lags the real scale of loss, as it only includes Palestinians killed by bombs or bullets whose bodies have been recovered, leaving out thousands trapped under rubble.
