Over 60,000 killed in Gaza where famine is unfolding

GAZA CITY/GENEVA: The health ministry Gaza said Tuesday that the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war had surpassed 60,000 people, in fighting that has raged for nearly 22 months, as the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the mass starvation in the Palestinian enclave was reminiscent of the famines in Ethiopia and Biafra in the 20th century.

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Similarly, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the manmade starvation crisis could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let far more food deliveries in.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC said.

It added that it would quickly carry out the formal analysis that could allow it to classify Gaza as “in famine”.

As far as the deaths are concerned, the health ministry in Gaza said, “The death toll from the Israeli aggression has risen to 60,034 martyrs and 145,870 injuries since October 7, 2023.”

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‘HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE OF EPIC PROPROTIONS’

Amid the worsening disaster, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday a trickle of aid into the Gaza Strip must become an ocean,

“Food, water, medicine and fuel must flow in waves and without obstruction,” he said.

“Palestinians in Gaza are enduring a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. This is not a warning. It is a reality unfolding before our eyes,” he said in a statement.

A REPEAT OF ETHIOPIA

Earlier in Geneva, WFP Emergency Director Ross Smith told reporters from Rome that it hasn’t been seen around the world in the 21st century.

“This is unlike anything we have seen in this century. It reminds us of previous disasters in Ethiopia or Biafra in the past century.”

“We’re getting about approximately 50 per cent of what we’re requesting into Gaza since these humanitarian pauses started on Sunday,” Smith said.

DYING OF HUNGER

The WFP says almost 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 147 people have died of hunger including 88 children, most in the last few weeks.

Images of emaciated children have shocked the world and fuelled international criticism of Israel, prompting it at the weekend to announce daily humanitarian pauses to fighting in three areas of Gaza and new safe corridors for aid convoys.

Yet the supply remains far short of what aid agencies say is the bare minimum required.

That’s why Smith warned that the WFP lacked the stocks or permissions to reopen the bakeries and community kitchens that had been a lifeline before a total Israeli blockade began in May.

END HOSTILITIES

On the other hand, the IPC alert said that “immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response.”

“This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”

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As far as its working is concerned, the IPC partners with governments, international aid groups and U.N. agencies and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population.

Its famine classification requires at least 20 per cent of people to be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying every day from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The IPC’s latest data indicated that formal famine thresholds have already been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.