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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Gaza Strip is at critical risk of
famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military
campaign, food security experts said Monday.
Outright famine is the mostly likely scenario unless conditions
change, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security
Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the
severity of hunger crises.
Nearly a half million Palestinians are in “catastrophic” levels
of hunger, meaning they face possible starvation, the report
said, while another million are at “emergency” levels of hunger.
Israel has banned any food, shelter, medicine or other goods
from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks,
even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground
operations.
Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost
entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s
19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to
produce food inside the territory.
The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did
not respond to a request for comment on the IPC report. The army
has said that enough assistance entered Gaza during a two-month
ceasefire that Israel shattered in mid-March when it relaunched
its military campaign. Israel says the blockade aims to pressure
Hamas to release the hostages it still holds.
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