Gaza City and surrounding areas experiencing famine: UN-backed body
A famine is occurring in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, according to the international system for monitoring world hunger and food security.
The UN-backed scale, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), has raised its classification for Gaza governorate to Phase 5, the highest level, which is characterised by starvation, destitution and death.
The same classification is projected to be extended to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of September.
At this point, more than 500,000 people throughout Gaza are living under Phase 5 conditions, an IPC report said.
Another 1.07 million people, or 54 percent of Gaza’s population, are classified as being under Phase 4, or “emergency” conditions, while 396,000 people (20 percent) are under Phase 3, or “crisis” conditions.
Israeli Foreign Ministry rejects IPC report, says ‘no famine in Gaza’
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has categorically rejected the findings of a UN-backed food security report, saying there was no famine in Gaza and that the findings were based on “Hamas lies”.
“There is no famine in Gaza,” said the ministry in a statement. It slammed the document, saying it was “based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests”.
UN blames Gaza famine on Israel’s ‘systematic obstruction’ of aid
The famine in Gaza should “haunt us all” and was entirely preventable had the UN not been systematically prevented from bringing in food, the UN aid chief says.
“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed, yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” Tom Fletcher told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva.
