Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip’s entire population, of which 80 percent are internally displaced, suffered from severe food insecurity, according to a new UN report.
“One hundred percent of the population of the Gaza Strip faced high levels of acute food insecurity,” the report titled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 stated.
Citing the Global Report on Food Crises 2024, the report said this was in comparison to South Sudan, Yemen and the Syrian Arab Republic where more than half of the population faced food insecurity.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), food insecurity is divided into five stages. The first two levels do not require immediate humanitarian assistance, while Phase 3 is called a “crisis,” Phase 4 an “emergency,” and Phase 5 “famine/catastrophe.”
Over 705,000 people in five countries/territories were projected to be facing Catastrophe (IPC/CH Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity in 2023, “most of them (576 000) in the Gaza Strip.”
The besieged enclave “became the most severe food crisis since IPC assessments were first conducted.”
“By late 2023, the entire population of 2.2 million was classified as facing Crisis conditions or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above), and 80 percent of the population was internally displaced,” stated the report.
An IPC Special Brief on Gaza dated 18 March 2024 warned of an imminent risk of famine, with more than a quarter of the population facing Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity, the report noted, “which at that time was projected to expand to threaten half the population – 1.1 million people – by July 2024 if hostilities and restricted access to humanitarian aid continued.”
The report was jointly prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Program (WFP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) more than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza.
At least 40 Palestinians have died due to starvation and malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza since October 7.
On Saturday, two youths, ages 12 and 17, became the latest casualties of Israel’s imposed blockade on northern Gaza, after succumbing to malnutrition and lack of medicine, reported the Quds News Network.
In June, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nine out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip are experiencing severe food poverty, amidst the ongoing genocidal war in the enclave.
