LONDON: Over 495,000 people in Gaza, representing one in five of the enclave’s population, are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, characterized by extreme lack of food, hunger, and exhaustion, according to a forthcoming United Nations report.
According to The Guardian, the latest “Special Snapshot” of Gaza from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification will be published today. The UN report will also disclose that more than half of Gaza’s households have had to exchange or sell clothes to buy food, as the risk of scarcity remains high across the enclave after recent violence.
Israeli officials have tight control over entry into the Gaza Strip, and movements need military permission. Debris has damaged the roads, fuel is in short supply, and electricity and communication networks are hardly functional.
At the start of the conflict Israel imposed a complete siege on the Strip, which has only been gradually eased under Washington’s pressure. The war has reduced Gaza’s ability to produce its own food stuff.
The IPC also noted that food deliveries and nutritional services to northern part of Gaza increased in March and April, preventing a starvation and improving conditions in the territory’s south. However, the situation has deteriorated again as a result of hostilities, and the risk of deprivation remains in the Strip as long as the war continues and humanitarian access is also limited, The Guardian reported.
According to the newspaper, more than half of households reported often running out of food at home, and over 20 percent go entire days and nights without eating. Aid organizations and UN agencies report difficulties in reaching Kerem Shalom border crossing because of the current fighting, Israeli restrictions, and the complete breakdown of law and order.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights stated that Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian help into Gaza may constitute the war crime of deliberate famine. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization have also warned that by the middle of July, over 1 million people could be dead or starving.
A joint statement from Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, and the European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic stated that the crisis in the Gaza Strip has reached another breaking point and the delivery of any meaningful humanitarian help inside the Gaza Strip has become almost impossible and the very fabric of civil society is unraveling.
Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps said that people are enduring subhuman conditions, resorting to desperate steps like eating animal feed, boiling weeds, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive.
