Famine is at risk in the northern Gaza Strip amid an ongoing Israeli offensive against the Hamas militant group and a near-total halt in food aid, the Famine Monitoring Committee (FRC) warned on Saturday. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
The Gaza Strip is threatened with catastrophic food insecurity
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or will be in the near future,” warns the FRC. The committee predicted in mid-October that the number of people in the Gaza Strip who will be exposed to “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 will reach 345,000, which it represents 16 percent of the enclave’s population.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative classified the situation as phase five, a situation where “hunger, death, destitution and an extremely critical level of acute malnutrition are evident”.
Since then, however, conditions in the northern areas of Gaza have worsened, with food systems collapsing, humanitarian aid dwindling and water, sanitation and hygiene falling in critical conditions, according to the FRC.
“It can therefore be assumed that hunger, malnutrition and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease are rapidly increasing in these areas,” the FRC warned, calling on “all actors directly involved in or influencing the conflict to take immediate action” to avert and mitigate this catastrophic situation”.
The report also draws attention to the fact that aid shipments allowed into the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since last October. Access to food continues to deteriorate and the prices of basic food items on the black market are soaring – for example, cooking gas has risen by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent.
Large areas of the Palestinian Gaza Strip are devastated by Israeli ground attacks and bombings, launched in retaliation for the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023. The Israeli army intensified its operations in the north of the enclave, where evacuation orders are issued, at the beginning of October this year.
Militant commandos killed more than 1,000 people and captured more than 250 and dragged them to the Gaza Strip during the attack on southern Israel. Fewer than a hundred hostages are believed to remain in Hamas hands. About 40 of them are considered dead by Israel.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has so far claimed at least 43,552 dead Palestinians and more than 102,000 wounded, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
