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Gaza’s desperate hunger

 

 

The right of food is a fundamental
human right; Geneva Convention
(Article 54) stipulates the “prohibition
of starving civilians as a method of
warfare”

 

 

 

 

 

90% of Gaza Population suffer from Food Poverty (click APLA )

The population of Gaza Strip suffers from severe food insecurity as the Israeli war on Gaza enters its 4th month. UNICEF has warned that the risk of death from hunger has become real in light of the obstruction of the entry of humanitarian and food aid, more than 90% of the population in Gaza suffer from food poverty. This has become severe in conjunction with the tightening of the siege and the prevention of food and water supplies from reaching most of the people, as 9 out of 10 people spend an entire day without eating anything, and the amount of aid entering the
Gaza Strip is only 10% of the amount that the population needs, according to the UN. According to UNRWA, 500-600 trucks were entering Gaza Strip daily before the war, but currently it does not exceed 100 trucks, and it was much less than the beginning of the war, while
Gaza Strip needs more than a thousand trucks daily to cover the need and shortage. The biggest shock is the prices of food commodities, which have increased 10 times for some products due to the stock being almost completely exhausted, and the scarcity or loss of some foodstuffs, such as meat and eggs, as a result of the destroyed more than 70% of livestock farms.

Integrated Food Security
Phase Classification (IPC): It
is a tool that uses a global
standard to classify the
severity and level of food
insecurity in communities,
categorized from 1-5.

The starvation war committed by Israel reached unprecedented levels and led to the expansion of the spread of diseases due to food insecurity. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification (IPC), the percentage of families affected by high levels of acute food insecurity in Gaza is the largest ever recorded in the world, and it was classified as follows:

2.08 million in stage 3 (high level of acute food insecurity).
▪ 930,000 people have passed the 3rd stage to the 4th stage
(emergency level).
▪ 378,000 people passed the 3rd and 4th stages to the 5th stage
(catastrophic level).

Human rights organizations warn of a real and unprecedented
famine in Gaza Strip, especially in the north, where tens of thousands of families spend their entire day and several days without any food, according to Al-Haq Organization, and they share the scraps, especially those who have suffered from repeated displacement many times under
the Israeli bombing and mass killing, and every time they are displaced, they are forced to leave any luggage and food behind them. According to the WFP, within one week (the days of the truce), it was delivered food aid to around 250,000 people in the south of the Gaza Strip. This
mean that even during the days of the truce, no aid reached in the north, with estimates of the presence of about 700-800 thousand people, most of them were elderly, children, people with disabilities, and women who were unable to follow Israeli instructions to walk south. Gaza population struggle to find food and water, pregnant women do not receive adequate nutrition and health care, putting their lives at risk. In addition, all children under the age of five – 335,000 – are at high risk of acute malnutrition as the risk of famine continues to rise, and an entire generation is now at risk of stunting, which occurs when the growth of young children is stunted by a lack of adequate nutrition and causes physical irreparable disabilities, and this would undermine the ability to learn for an entire generation. Israel is destroying the food system in Gaza and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian
people, as it bombed hundreds of bakeries, shops, food stores, markets, and poultry farms, and destroyed thousands of acres of agricultural land, which indicates the existence of an executive decision to deprive civilians of benefiting from the few food supplies remaining in the Strip.
Israeli forces bulldozed around 22% of agricultural land, including orchards, greenhouses, and agricultural lands in northern Gaza, and destroyed approximately 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet, according to UN experts.
In the face of this catastrophic situation, the international community must stand to its responsibilities regarding a systematic starvation process targeting 2.3 million people, to open safe humanitarian corridors and deliver aid to all parts of the Gaza Strip without any conditions,
through serious and immediate intervention to stop the Israeli military attack and protect civilians from the crime of genocide, and take effective measures to ensure accountability for war crimes and violations committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people.

The Association of Palestinian Local Authorities – APLA