On Monday the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) said that across the whole of the Gaza Strip the number of people facing “catastrophic hunger” has risen to 1.1 million, about half the population of the besieged coastal enclave. That is nearly double the figure deemed at risk of catastrophic hunger in the previous IPC report in December, when there was already record hunger.
“Famine is now projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza Governorates and is expected to become manifest during the projection period from mid-March 2024 to May 2024,” it said. For famine to be declared, at least 20% of the population must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease. Famine has been declared twice in the past 13 years: in Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017.
Not a mouse to be found.
On Monday the IPC said that from mid-March to mid-July, in the most likely scenario and assuming a worsening of the war including a ground offensive in Rafah city, half of Gaza’s population or 1.11 million people were expected to face catastrophic conditions. In late December, the IPC said the situation in Gaza had already exceeded the 20% threshold.
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said: “Once a famine is declared, it is too late for too many people.”
