Gaza death toll hits 60,000 as global monitor demands action to avert famine

A worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza and immediate action is needed to end fighting and allow unimpeded aid access, a global hunger monitor warned on Tuesday, saying failure to act now would result in widespread death.

Its alert coincided with a statement from Gaza health authorities saying Israel’s military campaign had now killed more than 60,000 Palestinians.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the manmade starvation crisis could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let far more food deliveries in.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC said.

It added that it would quickly carry out the formal analysis that could allow it to classify Gaza as “in famine”.

But it is unclear whether any such announcement would help to remove the main obstacle to food reaching Gaza’s 2.1 million people: Israel’s refusal to allow more than a trickle of trucks in.

NOT ENOUGH FOOD GETTING INTO GAZA

“We’re getting about approximately 50% of what we’re requesting into Gaza since these humanitarian pauses started on Sunday,” Ross Smith of the World Food Programme told reporters in Geneva by video.

The WFP says almost 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 147 people have died of hunger including 88 children, most in the last few weeks.

Images of emaciated children have shocked the world and fuelled international criticism of Israel, prompting it at the weekend to announce daily humanitarian pauses to fighting in three areas of Gaza and new safe corridors for aid convoys.

Yet the supply remains far short of what aid agencies say is the bare minimum required.

The IPC alert said this meant 62,000 metric tons of staple food a month, but that according to the Israeli aid coordination agency COGAT, only 19,900 tons entered in May and 37,800 in June.

Smith said the WFP lacked the stocks or permissions to reopen the bakeries and community kitchens that had been a lifeline before a total Israeli blockade began in May.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that that the situation in Gaza was “tough” but that there were lies about starvation. He said 5,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the last two months, and that Israel would assist those wanting to conduct airdrops – a delivery method that aid groups say is ineffective and tokenistic.

Israel has consistently said its actions are justified as self-defence. It says the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which ruled Gaza, is to blame for refusing to release hostages and surrender, and for operating in civilian areas, which Hamas denies.

IPC CALLS FOR END TO CATASTROPHIC SUFFERING

The IPC alert said that “immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response.

“This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”

The IPC partners with governments, international aid groups and U.N. agencies and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population.

Its famine classification requires at least 20% of people to be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying every day from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The IPC’s latest data indicated that formal famine thresholds have already been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.

But David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee aid group, said that “formal famine declarations always lag reality”.

“By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people – half of them children under 5 – had already died of hunger,” he said in a statement. “By the time famine is declared, it will already be too late.”

War has raged in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants for 22 months.

After an 11-week Israeli blockade, limited U.N.-led aid operations resumed on May 19 and a week later the obscure new U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – backed by Israel and the United States – began distributing food aid.

CRITICISM OF ISRAELI-BACKED GHF AID GROUP

The rival aid efforts have sparked a war of words – pitting Israel, the U.S. and the GHF against the U.N., international aid groups and dozens of governments from around the world.

Israel and the U.S. accuse Hamas of stealing aid – which the militants deny – and the U.N. of failing to prevent it. The U.N. says it has not seen evidence of Hamas diverting much aid.

The IPC said 88% of Gaza was now under evacuation orders or within militarised areas, and was critical of GHF efforts.

It said most of the GHF food items “require water and fuel to cook, which are largely unavailable”.

The IPC’s Famine Review Committee said: “Our analysis of the food packages supplied by the GHF shows that their distribution plan would lead to mass starvation.”

The GHF was not immediately available for comment. It has previously said it has so far distributed more than 96 million meals.

Jolien Veldwijk, CARE Palestine Country Director, said that Palestinians were suffering a “manmade famine, caused by Israel’s siege and the deliberate obstruction of aid, fuelled by the inaction of world leaders”.

“The haunting images of emaciated children are evidence of a failure of humanity to act.”