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New Gaza food security assessment sees famine risk persisting amid ongoing fighting and restricted aid operations
JERUSALEM – The risk of famine will persist throughout Gaza this winter unless fighting stops and more humanitarian aid reaches families, according to a new food security assessment by experts from 16 UN agencies and NGOs. Twelve months of fighting have decimated livelihoods, drastically reduced food production and severely restricted both commercial and humanitarian supply lines, the report said.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) snapshot – released today – projects that over the coming months 1.95 million people in Gaza (91 percent of the population) will face acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or worse). The IPC, which uses global, scientific standards to evaluate food insecurity levels, also said that 345,000 people would face Catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC Phase 5), and 876,000 people (41 percent) Emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
“No humanitarian food supplies entered northern Gaza in the first two weeks of October, and only a few trucks reached the south and central areas, meaning the situation is likely far worse than what the assessment picked up when data was collected in September,” said Arif Husain, WFP’s Chief Economist. “Commercial supplies are down, there is large-scale displacement, infrastructure is decimated, agriculture has collapsed and people have no money. All this is reflected in the IPC’s projection that the situation will get worse from November onwards.”
WFP
