Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza is so severe that the vast majority of people across the world who are experiencing famine are located in Gaza, a UN food expert pointed out this week.
There are currently roughly 706,000 people in total across the world who are in populations experiencing “catastrophic” or “famine” levels of hunger, global food researchers have found. Of those people, about 577,000 are Palestinians in Gaza, according to a recent report by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
This means Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of the global population that is currently experiencing famine, as chief economist for the UN World Food Program Arif Husain said in an interview with The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner published Wednesday. Some of the other countries facing some level of famine are Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, according to the IPC.
Husain emphasized that the hunger crisis in Gaza, which IPC researchers have determined is acute across the entire region, is unprecedented in its severity.
“I’ve been doing this for the past two decades, and I’ve been to all kinds of conflicts and all kinds of crises. And, for me, this is unprecedented because of, one, the magnitude, the scale, the entire population of a particular place; second, the severity; and, third, the speed at which this is happening, at which this has unfolded, is unprecedented,” Husain said. “In my life, I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of severity, in terms of scale, and then in terms of speed.”
Husain also pointed out that the IPC report determined that the entire population of Gaza, or about 2.2 million people, will be under “full-fledged famine” within the next six months if Israel continues its blockade of food and other basic needs. The economist said that the escalating crisis is largely the result of Israel barring food from entering and being distributed in the region, adding that its relentless bombing campaign has endangered humanitarian workers and made it nearly impossible to distribute resources.
Famine is the worst level of hunger under IPC’s classification system, characterized by three main criteria, as Husain explained. First, more than 20 percent of a region’s population must be starving. The second is that 30 percent of children in the region must be malnourished or extremely thin, known as being “wasted.” Then, the mortality rate must be double the average rate.
Currently, Gaza is not classified as a full famine because its population only meets the first criteria, he said, but the population is on the way there. Roughly a quarter of the population has already reached the “famine” classification, while 50 percent are in the next highest classification of a food insecurity “emergency” and the rest are in an acute “crisis” of hunger, the IPC found.
“The bottom line is that, in Gaza, pretty much everybody is hungry at the moment,” Husain said.
“[Y]ou hope not to say, ‘O.K., let’s act because there is a famine,’” he added. “You need to act to avoid a famine, right? Because if you say, ‘O.K., let’s act when there is a famine,’ that means you’re saying people have already died, children are already wasted, people are already starving. That’s not the point. The point is that we should never let a population reach that state.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy