{"id":17190,"date":"2024-03-21T12:49:10","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T12:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/21\/famine-in-northern-gaza-is-imminent-as-more-than-1-million-people-face-catastrophic-levels-of-hunger-new-report-warns\/"},"modified":"2024-03-21T12:49:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T12:49:10","slug":"famine-in-northern-gaza-is-imminent-as-more-than-1-million-people-face-catastrophic-levels-of-hunger-new-report-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/21\/famine-in-northern-gaza-is-imminent-as-more-than-1-million-people-face-catastrophic-levels-of-hunger-new-report-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Famine in northern Gaza is imminent as more than 1 million people face \u2018catastrophic\u2019 levels of hunger, new report warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 70% of the population are already suffering with catastrophic levels of hunger, a UN-backed report said Monday, as the EU\u2019s top diplomat accused Israel of using \u201cstarvation as a weapon of war.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north \u201canytime between mid-March and May 2024,\u201d according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Acute hunger and malnutrition have already \u201cfar exceeded\u201d the threshold for famine in northern Gaza and the IPC warns of a \u201cmajor acceleration of death and malnutrition.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            This is the \u201cthe highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded\u2026 anywhere, anytime,\u201d by the IPC, said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            The crisis has been described as \u201centirely man-made\u201d and \u201cpreventable\u201d due to Israel\u2019s\u00a0throttling of aid\u00a0and widespread destruction of Gaza. The report said famine conditions will spread unless there is an \u201cimmediate cessation of hostilities\u201d and full aid access granted to the strip.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cPeople in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,\u201d said World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cThere is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it\u2019s too late. Thousands more will be dead.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            The European Union\u2019s top diplomat Josep Borrell accused Israel of using \u201cstarvation as a weapon of war,\u201d saying the famine was \u201cnot a natural disaster\u201d but caused by Israel \u201cpreventing humanitarian support entering into Gaza.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Hundreds of trucks were waiting at the border and being prevented entry into Gaza by Israel, he said.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cThe support is there waiting. Trucks are stopped, people are dying,\u201d Borrell said. Aid delivery by sea and air was only necessary because the \u201cnatural\u201d way of delivering aid by land was \u201cartificially closed\u201d by Israel, he added.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            The World Food Programme estimates that at least 300 trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day and distribute food to meet only the basic hunger needs. The UN agency has only managed to take nine convoys into northern Gaza since the start of the year, it said in a statement.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            A ceasefire remains the only way for agencies such as the WFP to \u201croll out a massive relief operation reaching all the communities in need,\u201d it said.    <\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline gallery--hidden\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__main\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__container\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__slides\">                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        <\/div>\n<p>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev-overlay\"><\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next-overlay\"><\/button>      <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h5 class=\"gallery-inline__headline\">In pictures: \u2018Catastrophic\u2019 hunger in Gaza<\/h5>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__counter\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__controls\">        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev\">          Prev                  <\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next\">          Next                  <\/button>      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"subheader\">    Famine will spread,\u00a0warning over Rafah offensive<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Aid workers and government officials say\u00a0a pattern has emerged of Israeli obstruction, where Israel\u2019s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency that controls access to Gaza, has imposed arbitrary and contradictory criteria on relief entering the enclave.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            About 210,000 people in the northern Gaza governates are already thought to be in Phase 5 of the IPC Food Insecurity Scale \u2013 known as the \u201cCatastrophe Phase.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            One in three children below the age of 2 are \u201cacutely malnourished,\u201d the report said.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            In the south, the governorates of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah are all in a Phase 4 or the \u201cEmergency Phase\u201d and in the worst-case scenario face the \u201crisk of famine through July 2024,\u201d according to the report.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cBetween mid-March and mid-July, in the most likely scenario and under the assumption of an escalation of the conflict including a ground offensive in Rafah, half of the population of the Gaza Strip (1.11 million people) is expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5),\u201d the report warned.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Scarce supplies mean that \u201cvirtually all households are skipping meals every day\u201d and adults are going without so their children can eat, the report said. In two-thirds of households in northern Gaza, people \u201cwent entire days and nights without eating at least 10 times in the last 30 days,\u201d the report found. \u201cIn the southern governorates, this applies to one third of the households.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Famine could be halted if aid organizations are allowed full access to Gaza to bring food, water and other supplies to the civilian population, the report said.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            For this to happen, a ceasefire is needed immediately, it said.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            But Netanyahu\u00a0has vowed to push ahead with a planned ground offensive in Rafah, which has been under Israeli bombardment for weeks and where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians are now sheltering.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            International alarm is mounting over the pending operation, with fears that further escalation of violence will lead to more deaths and suffering, and exacerbate the hunger crisis.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            On Monday, US President Joe Biden\u00a0voiced \u201cdeep concerns\u201d\u00a0over Rafah in a phone call with Netanyahu, according to Biden\u2019s top national security official.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden sought to explain to Netanyahu why the plan for\u00a0Rafah\u00a0could prove catastrophic for Palestinian civilians and hamper the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            The concerns fall within three areas: that civilians sheltering in\u00a0Rafah\u00a0have nowhere safe to go; that\u00a0Rafah\u00a0is an entry point for critical humanitarian assistance; and that neighboring Egypt has voiced serious concerns about a potential military operation there, he said.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Sullivan said Israel has not presented a plan to the United States or the rest of the world on protecting Palestinian civilians in\u00a0Rafah.    <\/p>\n\n<div>This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 70% of the population are already suffering with catastrophic levels of hunger, a UN-backed report said Monday, as the EU\u2019s top diplomat accused Israel of using \u201cstarvation as a weapon of war.\u201d All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}