An independent group of experts warned on June 4 that it was possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it.
“It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, said about famine in Gaza.
Concerns about deadly hunger have been high in recent months and spiked after the head of the World Food Program said in April that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of war. Experts at the U.N. agency later said Cindy McCain was expressing a personal opinion.
An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they are too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.
That was according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collection of U.N. agencies, governments, and other bodies that in March warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza.
The June 4 report by FEWS NET is the first technical assessment by an international organization saying that famine is possibly occurring in northern Gaza.
Funded by the United States Agency for International Development, FEWS NET is an internationally recognized authority on famine that provides evidence-based and timely early warning information for food insecurity. It also helps inform decisions on humanitarian responses in some of the world’s most food insecure countries.
But for a formal declaration of famine, the data must be there. Such a declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide.
The report cautioned that data collection would likely be impeded as long as the war goes on. It said people, including children, are dying of hunger-related causes across the territory and that those conditions will likely persist until at least July, if there is not a fundamental change in how food aid is distributed.
The report also cautioned that efforts to increase aid into Gaza are insufficient, and urged Israel’s government to act urgently.
The U.N. and international aid agencies for months have said not enough food or other humanitarian supplies are entering Gaza, and Israel faces mounting pressure from top ally the U.S. and others to let in more aid.
Israel has repeatedly denied there is famine underway in Gaza, while preventing independent verification of the situation, and rejected claims it has used hunger as a weapon against civilians in its war against the militant Hamas group.
Once the main hub of humanitarian aid operations, Israel has been expanding its brutal offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. That invasion has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine, and other vital humanitarian supplies to Palestinians facing hunger.
