Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new joint report from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program warns that even as North Gaza is now facing famine, “it is highly likely that the rest of the Gaza Strip would be facing a risk of famine through July 2024, in a worst-case scenario.”
The International Medical Corps, an NGO working in Gaza alongside UNICEF and other organizations, reports this week that “according to a recent needs assessment by the Global Nutrition Cluster, the situation in Gaza is alarming: the ongoing conflict has significantly worsened child malnutrition from a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 0.8% to 16% in northern Gaza and 7% in the rest of Gaza.”
That “7% in the rest of Gaza” figure will skyrocket by July to levels similar to what now exists in North Gaza.
The report says that 1.7 million people are internally displaced in Gaza, which means homeless and without a source of income. The first four months of Israel’s total war on Gaza destroyed an entire year’s GDP for the entirety of Palestine: “As of end of January 2024, the cost of direct damage inflicted on infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was equivalent to 97 percent of the total GDP of West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2022.” That would be like doing $27 trillion worth of damage to buildings, roads, water pipes, and sewage treatment centers in the United States. Quarterly inflation in the Strip was 120% in the first quarter of this year, while GDP had plummeted by 80%.
Amartya Sen argued that famines do not occur because there is no food. They happen because food becomes too expensive and isn’t distributed to the people who need it even as people lose the income necessary to purchase it.
This point is an important reply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel is allowing enough food into Gaza for the population calorie-wise. This assertion is, according to UN and NGO aid organizations on the ground, a bald-faced lie. But even if it were true, having food in trucks at the border would not necessarily forestall famine if it cannot be distributed efficiently, if people cannot get to the distribution centers, etc.
The report says ominously:
- Between mid-March and mid-July, half of the population of the Gaza Strip (1.1 million people) is expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), and the entire population of the Gaza Strip is expected to face Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above) levels of acute food insecurity.
Phase 3 malnutrition is defined as: “Phase 3 – CRISIS: At least 20 percent of households in an area are experiencing Phase 3 or worse outcomes, and acute malnutrition rates are expected to be between 10 and 15 percent.”
Phase 5 malnutrition is defined as: “FAMINE: At least 20 percent of households in an area are experiencing Phase 5 outcomes, acute malnutrition levels exceed 30 percent, and more than 2 per 10,000 people are dying each day.”
Al Jazeera English: “Aid group fears famine-like conditions may already be present in south Gaza”
That is bad for North Gaza, but things get much worse, expanding to the whole Strip:
- According to the IPC Famine Review Committee, as of March 2024, all evidence pointed towards a major acceleration of starvation-related death and malnutrition.
Food insecurity in Gaza is not moving along at a steady pace. It is speeding up alarmingly. And it has been speeding up for some time:
- Malnutrition rates had doubled since January 2024 in the northern governorates, with 1 in 3 children under 2 years of age being affected. As of March 2024, famine was projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza governorates, in the absence of an immediate cessation of hostilities, unrestricted humanitarian access and a restoration of health, water, sanitation and electricity.
So, just this spring a third of toddlers and infants in North Gaza were visibly malnourished. Please note that children don’t come back from malnutrition. It has permanent cognitive and affective impacts. They will never achieve their full potential regarding intelligence and emotional regulation.
And here’s the kicker:
- Moreover, for the southern and middle governorates, the IPC Famine Review Committee concluded that there was a risk of famine during the projection period of mid-March to mid-July, in a reasonable worst-case scenario.
Famine is spreading inexorably from north Gaza to the south and by mid-July will very likely have encompassed the entirety of the Gaza Strip, with its 2.2 million people.
Given a population of 2.2 million, one in 10,000 would equal 220 persons if famine conditions really did spread throughout the entire strip. If more than 2 per 10,000 died daily, that would imply at least three dead every day. That figure would yield a death toll of 660 per day dying of starvation. That death toll would equal 19,800 per month.
If the Israeli-imposed famine remained in place for two months, it would kill more than all the Israeli bombs have in the nine months of the total war on Gaza.