The famine is already official in the Gaza Strip. The Integrated Food Safety Classification in Phases (CIF, in its acronym in Spanish), an international system supported by the UN that calibrates the food situation in the world, has published this Friday a new report that confirms the level of a famine in the city of Gaza and in the rest of the municipalities and fields of refugees that make up the Gaza Government. This report has led to the United Nations to officially declare the famine in the strip. It is a decision that has been made only three times in the 21st century: in 2011 in Ethiopia, in 2017 in South Sudan and 2024 in Sudan and the first time it is declared outside Africa.
The CIF alert also arrives at the gates that are concentrated in Gaza City, in maneuvers that humanitarian organizations have warned that the deaths and suffering of the civilian population will fire.
According to this report, 514,000 people, almost a quarter of the Palestinians in Gaza, are suffering famine. The figure is expected to increase to 641,000 by the end of September.
“The CIF report is a shameless lie,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office. “Israel does not have a famine policy. Israel has a policy to prevent it.” The prime minister has accused that international system of falling into a “famine campaign orchestrated by Hamas”, and has denounced this and other CIF reports for “ignoring Israel’s humanitarian efforts and systematic theft [de suministros] On the part of Hamas. ”In July, leaks of high positions of the Israeli army and an investigation by the American Agency for Humanitarian Aid (USAID) refuted the existence of that systematic detour.
“It is a famine a few hundred meters from the food, in a fertile land,” said Tom Fletcher, Deputy Secretary General of UN Humanitarian Affairs. “It is an openly promoted famine by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war,” the British diplomat continued.
The UN human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence has reiterated that the deaths resulting from the use of hunger as a weapon can constitute a war crime for “intentional homicide.” At least 273 people have died for causes relative to hunger since October 2023 in the enclave, of which 112 were children, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by Hamas.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has assured for his part that the famine’s statement “is no mystery.” “It is a disaster caused by man, a moral accusation and failure of humanity in itself,” said the Portuguese in X. “Children die and the people who must act do not do so. Israel, as a occupying power, is obliged under international law to guarantee food and medical resources to the population,” he continued.
The CIF investigation requires the arrival of a high fire in the strip that allows to stop the spread of the famine towards other points of the enclave, something that expected that it will happen “during the next weeks” in deir El Balah (center) and Jan Yunis (south), if things do not change on the ground.
The CIF contemplates the level of famine in territories where 20% of households suffer extreme food deficiencies, when 30% of children suffer acute malnutrition and when the ratio of deaths caused by hunger exceeds the two adults or the four children a day for every 10,000 inhabitants. Also when at least two of these criteria are fulfilled. The “famine” qualification is the worst of the scenarios of a five -phase scale contemplated in this body in terms of the food situation of a population.
The CIF facilitates the analysis that allows governments, international organizations and humanitarian agencies to issue the relevant statements. In the case of Gaza, it has been the decision of UNICEF, the World Food Program (PMA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Agency for Agriculture (FAO), all United Nations agencies. An official famine statement serves to mobilize resources at the international level.
Conditions to avoid invasion
Meanwhile, Israel continues to advance to launch the assault and land invasion of Ciudad de Gaza. This Friday, the Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, has threatened to destroy this town, the largest Palestinian municipality, if Hamas rejects the main conditions it demands to end the war: the disarmament of the militia and the liberation of all the captives.
Katz has launched this warning in the same statement in which he has announced that the top Israeli leaders approved on Thursday night the plans “to defeat Hamas in Gaza”, referring to the operation that the largest municipality and capital of the Strip.
“The doors of hell will open soon about the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza,” said Israeli minister in his social networks. If the Palestinian fighters do not accept Israel’s conditions to finish the war, Gaza City “will become Rafah or Beit Hanoun,” he said in what is a direct admission of the generalized destruction that the Israeli army has caused in those municipalities with mass bombing.
According to Katz, the new plans that Israel has for the enclave go along the same path, since they include “a lot of fire, evacuation of residents and maneuvers.”
On Thursday night, ensuring that he had instructed to resume negotiations to free all captives. The statement was the first reference of the Israeli government towards the conversations for a high fire since Hamas approved on Monday a truce proposal that four days later the Israeli executive has not officially valued.
Despite that, Netanyahu insisted that the offensive against Ciudad de Gaza will continue until Hamas accepts peace “in the terms of Israel”, which means the disarmament of the militia, the demilitarization of the enclave, the release of the captives, the Israeli security control over the strip and the appearance of a civil administration disconnected from Hamas and the Palestinian authority.
One million civilians are precarious concentrated in Gaza City., As Israel intends, it would have catastrophic consequences. Israel disregard those notices. On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it has instructed the health authorities and humanitarian workers who prepare to leave Gaza City and move south.
Hell on earth
Israel threatens to bring hell to a land full of lacks and sufferings that have bombarded incessantly for almost two years. During this time, the Israeli army has caused so many displacements that many Gazati have lost their belongings until they keep the clothes they wear.
Arab media cite medical sources that ensure that missiles have caused at least 30 fatal victims since Friday dawn. Of these, 25 have registered in Gaza City, where Israel launches for the last days a good part of its attacks and where it says that it is gradually concentrating troops and military infrastructure.
Local sources denounce an attack in an area of tents in that municipality that has killed five people from the same family: the father, the mother and the three children. Images posterior to the attack have shown rescue teams collecting a tiny, calcined and unrecognizable body.
On Thursday, an investigation suggested that 83% of the victims caused by Israeli shrapnel in Gaza are civilians. The report, promoted by The Guardian and local media, is based on classified documents of Israeli military intelligence dated May 19. At that time, the Israeli authorities had counted the safe or probable death of 8,900 combatants of Hamas or Islamic jihad, at the same time as the Ministry of Health of Gaza told a total of 52,982 fatalities.
According to this data, the civilian population is five out of six dead, a ratio of victims between combatants and civilians with few precedents in modern war history, and that exceeds Syria or Sudan crises. These calculations leave aside the 10,000 missing under the debris that the Ministry of Health excludes from the list of official dead. In September, Netanyahu said that the ratio of civil deaths for each fighter eliminated during the Israeli offensive in Gaza was “lower in the history of modern urban war”, and said it was in a proportion of one by one.
