Famine is expected in northern Gaza, experts say

Experts expect a sharp rise in deaths from malnutrition among children in Gaza, according to a new report from a global authority on food security and nutrition, which warned of particularly dire conditions for 300,000 people in the northern part of the territory .

“Famine is looming in the northern governorates and is expected to occur sometime between mid-March and May 2024,” it said the report released Monday by the global Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative. The group – founded in 2004 by UN agencies and international aid groups – has classified a famine only twice before: in Somalia in 2011 and in South Sudan in 2017.

In the coming months, the report said, as many as 1.1 million people could face the most severe level of hunger classified by the group, with “alarmingly high acute malnutrition rates among children under five, significant excess mortality and an imminent risk of starvation.”

The group said ongoing fighting and aid groups’ lack of access to northern Gaza, the first part of territory Israeli forces invaded in October, have exacerbated the vulnerability of the 300,000 Palestinian civilians remaining there.

Across the Gaza Strip, people are facing severe shortages of food and other basic goods due to Israeli bombing and a near-total blockade.

The other parts of Gaza, including the central and southern areas, also face the risk of famine in July if worst-case scenarios materialize, the group said, warning that all of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents “face high levels of acute food insecurity .”

Last December, the group found that famine could break out in Gaza within six months unless fighting stopped immediately and more humanitarian supplies reached the area. “Since then, the conditions necessary to prevent famine have not been met,” the latest report said.

According to the group’s classifications, a famine is classified according to three conditions: when at least 20 percent of households are extremely short of food; at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and for every 10,000 people, at least two adults or four children die every day from hunger or diseases related to malnutrition.