War
Woman explained in an area of the Gaza Strip
Aid organizations have long reported that hundreds of thousands in the Gaza Strip do not have enough food. Now the situation has worsened.
A famine has been explained in a northern area of the Gaza Strip. The necessary criteria were fulfilled, the responsible IPC initiative (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) said.
It is about the Gaza region, in which the city of Gaza is also located. The life of 132,000 children under the age of five was threatened because of malnutrition, the initiative said. 41,000 of them would be regarded as particularly threatening cases, twice as many as in the previous assessment in May. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is the first time that a famine is called out in a country of the Middle East.
“An immediate ceasefire and the end of the conflict are of crucial importance in order to enable an unimpeded, large -scale humanitarian aid to rescue human life,” said the initiative.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced after the IPC publication: “There is no famine in Gaza.”
Strict criteria for explanation of famine
Before a famine is explained, three criteria must be met: at least 20 percent of households are affected by an extreme lack of food, at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die from hunger or due to the interaction of malnutrition and illness. All three are true, as Jean-Martin Bauer from the World Food Program (WFP) said in a briefing for journalists in Geneva.
The IPC initiative was founded in 2004. Members are almost two dozen organizations of the United Nations and aid organizations. It is responsible for the assessment of hunger layers all over the world. In the IPC scale there are five levels of the nutritional situation in a country or region. The highest – and worst – is level five: “disaster/famine”. Below is about hunger crises. So far, level four (“Emergency/Emergency”) has been true for the entire Gaza strip.
Four famines in 15 years earlier
According to the IPC, four famines have been confirmed in the past 15 years: 2011 in Somalia, 2017 and 2020 in South Sudan and most recently in Sudan in 2024.
dpa
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
