LONDON, 23 March. - (ANA) - The charge that Israel has triggered a “man-made famine” by obstructing aid reaching the starving people in Gaza is backed by an increasing body of evidence. And clear evidence is what is needed to call a famine – something that is declared only after a highly technical definition and multi-source analysis is matched, writes the London-based Guardian.

 

It’s a cautious process. The UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification defines famine as an extreme deprivation of food. Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident.

 

The situation was called “man-made starvation”, as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a group that includes the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, said that 1.1 million people, half of Gaza’s population, faced famine.

 

“The international community should hang its head in shame for failing to stop it,” Martin Griffiths, the UN top relief coordinator, said on the X social media platform, adding: “We know that once a famine is declared, it is way too late.”

 

Jeremy Konyndyk, the head of Refugees International and a former Biden administration official said: “In my 25 years as a humanitarian this may be, pound for pound, the grimmest analysis I have ever seen.”

 

“The famine is now starting. Only question at this point is how much more momentum it will be allowed to develop,” Konyndyk said on X.

 

The IPC report came as Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa – the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees – said he had been denied entry to Gaza where he was due to work on improving the humanitarian response. Lazzarini said the Israeli authorities prevented him from entering Gaza on Monday. Unrwa, the largest aid organisation working in Gaza, is coordinating aid trucks entering via the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.

 

“This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity,” Lazzarini wrote on X. “Too much time was wasted, all land crossings must open now. Famine can be averted with political will.”

 

Also on Monday, Oxfam said Israeli authorities were preventing “a warehouse full of international aid” from reaching the Gaza Strip.

 

Israel has asked the International Court of Justice not to issue emergency orders for it to step up humanitarian aid to Gaza to address the looming famine, dismissing South Africa’s request to do so as “morally repugnant”.

 

The IPC report named both the intensity of Israeli military operations and the extreme restrictions to humanitarian access into northern Gaza as factors that have propelled its population towards famine in just a few months.

 

Southern parts of Gaza, it said, would also face a risk of famine in the coming months “in a worst-case scenario”. An Israeli ground offensive on the southernmost town of Rafah, the IPC added, would increase already catastrophic levels of hunger across the entire Gaza Strip.

 

The UN said last week: “During the first two weeks of March, 12 humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, six were denied, and six were postponed.”

 

In two-thirds of households in northern Gaza, the report said, “people went entire days and nights without eating at least 10 times in the last 30 days. In the southern governorates, this applies to one-third of the households.”

 

With famine imminent, Oxfam has accused Israeli authorities of doing little to obey the International Court of Justice’s instruction to facilitate relief efforts to 2 million Palestinians. The Israeli government, it said, “ultimately bears accountability for the breakdown of the international response to the crisis in Gaza”.

 

Oxfam detailed how the Israeli authorities were “arbitrarily rejecting aid items”, claiming they were “dual-use” – civilian goods that could have a military purpose – including torches, batteries and medical supplies.

 

Essential equipment for humanitarian workers was also being stopped, Oxfam said, including communications equipment, protective vests, armoured cars, generators and prefabricated housing for staff.

 

There was “no communication about which are items are classified as dual-use”, it said, meaning an entire truckload could be turned away over one item.

 

“Some items may pass one day and be rejected the next. The list of rejected items is overwhelming and ever-changing,” Oxfam said. In one case, items including water bladders and testing kits for drinking water were rejected with no reason provided, but later allowed to enter.

 

“Oxfam’s shipment of vital water quality testing equipment has not been able to cross since December,” it said. “Oftentimes when a single item is considered ‘dual-use’ by Israel, the truck is forced to exit the queue. Reloading the truck to be able to enter the inspection line again can take 20 days.”

 

Famine has only been declared twice in the past decade – in an area of southern Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017.

 

This year we risk the horror of such an event in two places – Gaza and Sudan. They are “humanitarian nightmares”, or “catastrophic”, and a host of other superlative words that mean men, women and children are dying in agony. Wars, and resultant famines, are human-made.

 

Hunger is a daily part of life for an ever-growing number of people on our planet as the climate crisis wrecks livelihoods in farming, energy and industry. Despite the apparent hopelessness, many bright minds are laudably working hard on solutions to try to deal with it.

 

The starvation of our fellow human beings because of war needs just as much encouragement to find a resolution and stop the brutality. To respect international law needs statesmanship, it needs integrity and it needs core courage.

 

Sadly, we have all lost sight of demanding and expecting that in our leaders. Maybe this pivotal moment, this year of elections for 40% of the globe’s population, could just be an opportunity to fill the void of morality at the top but in the meantime we face the utter shame of famine in 2024.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/23 March 2024 - - -