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More than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “extremely critical” levels of hunger, with 70 per cent of crop fields destroyed and livelihoods decimated during the ongoing Israeli military offensive, a UN-backed food security assessment released on Thursday has revealed.
Figures from the global IPC food security initiative show that 133,000 people – or 6 per cent of the enclave’s population – are already experiencing Phase 5 or “catastrophic” food insecurity. It’s feared this number could rise to around 345,000 people – or 16 per cent of the entire population – between the winter months of November and April next year.
“Alarmed by today’s IPC report findings that high displacement and restrictions on humanitarian aid flows mean people in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Famine looms. This is intolerable,” UN General Secretary António Guterres sais.
The IPC assessment also stressed that only through widespread access to adequate food, medical supplies, water, and basic services across the Gaza Strip, can the risk of a rapid descent into famine be contained. It calls for an immediate, unconditional and sustained ceasefire, restoration of food systems, and better prevention and management of rising and acute malnutrition.
Blanket supplementary feeding programmes and infant and young child feeding programmes need to be bolstered, including promotion of breastfeeding and care for non-breastfed infants.
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