MEZIESBLOG

Famine looms in Gaza – when could one be declared?

Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, has said suffering in Gaza is now at the point of tipping into famine.

Starvation has been widely reported from inside Gaza, particularly in the north, where aid has rarely been delivered.

Here MEZIESBLOG looks at how famine is classified and what it takes for one to be declared.

What is famine?

Famine is assessed by the Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification (IPC), an initiative made up of more than a dozen UN agencies, regional bodies and aid groups.

When the following criteria are met, famine is declared:

• At least 20% of the population suffers extreme food shortages;
• One in three children is acutely malnourished;
• Two people out of every 10,000 die each day from starvation, malnutrition or disease.

Famine has been declared twice in the past 13 years: in
Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017.

Is there famine in Gaza?

The IPC said the 20% threshold had already been exceeded in December.

At that time, it warned the remaining two thresholds “may also be breached at some point” in the coming months.

“There is a risk of famine in the projection period through
May 2024 if the current situation persists or worsens,” it said.

The UN said last month that 25% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation”.

The IPC is due to release a new analysis in the middle of this month. 

Who is responsible for welfare in Gaza?

The United Nations views Israel as the occupying power in Gaza and says the Israeli military has a responsibility to facilitate humanitarian operations.

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war: “To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population.”

Israeli leaders have long argued that Gaza and the West Bank are not formally occupied on the basis that they were captured from Jordan and Egypt during the 1967 war rather than from a sovereign Palestine.

They say it is up to humanitarian organisations to deliver aid and that Israel is committed to improving the humanitarian situation.