Famine now unfolding in Gaza, says UN-backed monitor – Middle East crisis live
Airdrops are not enough to avert the humanitarian catastrophe, says the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification InitiativeThe Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have “dramatically worsened” the situation, including “increasingly stringent blockades” by Israel. A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza and mobility within has largely denied. The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year. But independent experts say they don’t need a formal declaration to know what they’re seeing in Gaza.Speaking to the Associated Press, Alex de Waal, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, said:Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she’s familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza’s symptoms. This is famine. Continue reading...
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Airdrops are not enough to avert the humanitarian catastrophe, says the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have “dramatically worsened” the situation, including “increasingly stringent blockades” by Israel.
A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza and mobility within has largely denied. The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year.
But independent experts say they don’t need a formal declaration to know what they’re seeing in Gaza.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Alex de Waal, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, said:
Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she’s familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza’s symptoms. This is famine.
Continue reading...
