IPC’s imminent famine announcement a “grim milestone for millions of Palestinians”, says ActionAid

RAMALLAH, Tuesday, March 19, 2024 (WAFA) – In response to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report forecasting imminent famine in northern Gaza, ActionAid has denounced the announcement as a "stain on humanity’s conscience."

The organization said in a statement on Tuesday that the report warns that 70% of people in northern Gaza are on the brink of famine unless urgent measures are taken to facilitate large-scale aid delivery and avert catastrophic hunger. Since the last analysis in December 2023, the conditions laid out by the IPC that were necessary to prevent famine have not been met and the latest evidence confirms that famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024. 

The report highlighted ongoing hostilities, mass forced displacement, and restricted humanitarian access as key drivers. Over the last several months, Israeli forces have prevented thousands of tonnes of aid from crossing by road into Rafah and into northern Gaza where the crisis is most severe.

Over the last 15 years, the IPC has announced famine in only two countries – after extreme hunger in Somalia in 2011 claimed the lives of 260,000 people and after war and drought drove famine to be declared in parts of South Sudan in 2017 and plunged millions into acute food insecurity.

Recently, UN officials stated that a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza were a step away from famine. On Friday, UNICEF reported that a staggering 1 in 3 children are acutely malnourished with the IPC reporting today that nearly all households are reducing their meals so that their children can eat. The IPC report pointed towards a steep rise in child deaths – which IPC experts believe may signal the imminent onset of famine.

Balsam, a nutritionist in Gaza, spoke about how young children are starting to die due to malnutrition: 

“Pregnant women are suffering malnutrition during this war. They cannot get the proper nutrients that both the mother and [their unborn baby] require. [Pregnant] women need to have a proper diet. They need a full range of foods, especially animal protein. In the current circumstances we live in, and in this horrendous war, women, children, and the elderly are suffering from malnutrition. This is due to the lack of healthy and nutritious foods. 

Many women suffer health problems and that has caused weight loss issues in both women and babies. Babies are born with a weight below 3.5 kilograms, which is the normal average weight for a newborn. That is a result of the shortage in nutritious food, especially for pregnant women.” 

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, around 2,000 doctors and medical staff in northern Gaza face severe starvation, leaving them exhausted and unable to feed themselves properly while working around the clock to save lives.

Riham Jafari, Communications and Advocacy Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said:

"Palestinians have been living through six months of severe hunger – a never-ending nightmare claiming children’s lives while severely malnourished women give birth to stillborn babies. And still, the world watches on in silence. Today’s announcement is a collective stain on humanity’s conscience and a catastrophic indictment of Western nations who have slept walked into this disaster while offering little meaningful action to avert an imminent famine. 

After so many dire warnings in recent months, world leaders urgently need to wake up to the sheer scale of this catastrophe. Waiting for confirmation that famine has occurred to take the urgent steps needed to scale up aid would be indefensible – we need an immediate and permanent ceasefire now.”