Famine has ended in Gaza. But the gains are fragile and it could get worse

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The world’s leading authority on food insecurity said Thursday that the situation in Gaza had improved since famine was declared in parts of the Palestinian territory last year, but warned that conditions are still at crisis levels.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said a reduction in fighting and the fact that Israel was allowing more aid into Gaza had a “significant impact, albeit unevenly across areas.” But it said most families in the war-battered enclave still weren’t getting nearly enough to eat.

“Even small disruptions to humanitarian access could rapidly reverse recent gains,” the report warned.

Covering a period of April through June, the IPC report shows that although conditions have markedly improved since last year, there’s no immediate prospect of pulling Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinians out of this crisis.

Israel’s military controls more than half of Gaza, leaving Palestinians confined to squalid tent camps and heavily damaged urban neighborhoods. Failing sewage systems have contributed to routine disease outbreaks and left residents with inconsistent access to basic services.

The lines at charity kitchens remain long and prices remain elevated, according to Palestinians in the territory and data from the Gaza Chamber of Commerce.

“The situation is very tragic,” said Rana Abu Bakr, a displaced mother who says her family relies on a charity kitchen in Khan Younis each day. Other than that, she said, “There’s no water, no food, nothing to drink. Prices are exorbitant.”

For children, living such a long time without enough food has contributed to a rise in reported cases of “stunting,” a condition where impaired growth causes lifelong consequences, the IPC report said.

“Many children are still going hungry, and some children may never fully recover from prolonged lack of proper nutrition,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

Israeli strikes and shelling have also killed more than 1,185 people since last October’s agreement, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The IPC is a panel of food security experts that the United Nations and aid agencies rely on. It measures things like how many households experience extreme food shortages, how many young children show bodily signs of malnutrition and how many people are dying from starvation.

It has declared famines in other places, including parts of Sudan and Somalia. But the declaration last August of famine in parts of Gaza was its first in the Middle East.

IPC uses five phases to classify food insecurity. Last summer, it confirmed the most severe classification — famine — in Gaza Governorate, which covers Gaza City. Thursday’s report classified all five governorates in the territory as now being in Phase 3 “crisis” conditions. It estimated that more than 200,000 residents were experiencing the higher Phase 4 “emergency” conditions.

Although acute food insecurity — when households can’t get enough food to survive — remains at crisis levels, the authority said acute malnutrition — the physical effects of not eating enough — declined to levels classified as acceptable, despite last year’s warnings.

Israel strenuously denied allegations of widespread hunger and manmade famine in Gaza, calling them lies. But after imposing an almost total blockade on humanitarian aid from early March to mid-May last year, it began allowing more aid into the territory. Israel controls the flow of all food entering Gaza, both aid and commercial goods sold in markets.

The IPC’s latest findings were rejected by the Israeli military body overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, called COGAT. It said the IPC overlooked Israeli data showing the number of trucks entering Gaza was nearly three times a required amount Israel independently calculated using World Food Program benchmarks.

Israel argued that the bigger problem was how food was distributed in Hamas-controlled areas, not how much was getting in.

Aid groups, however, say Israel has increasingly relied on commercial traders instead of humanitarian organizations. Medical workers in Gaza say this shift has left many people eating food that’s less nutritious.

“A lot of these things coming in on these trucks are harmful,” Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American pediatrician who has worked in Gaza, said earlier this year. That’s because sugary drinks and other packaged foods could shock kids’ bodies after months of acute malnutrition, she said.

COGAT acknowledges that commercial goods account for about half of what enters the territory since the October ceasefire, but denies giving them priority over aid.

As the world’s attention has shifted to Iran, efforts to advance reconstruction, demilitarize Gaza or transition governance to a U.S.-led Board of Peace have mostly stalled.

The IPC said the fragile and partial improvements could deteriorate. Roughly 1.4 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity through the end of the year, about 200,000 more than current levels.

The report warned that programs, including for pregnant and breastfeeding women, were shrinking in size “due to funding constraints and uncertainty” over whether Israel will continue allowing international aid groups to operate, the report said.

Israel introduced new registration rules for international NGOs last year that require organizations to disclose extensive information that some aid groups say could endanger staff and force them to halt operations.

“These gains are good, but they are due to the level of humanitarian assistance — particularly food assistance — we’ve been able to bring into Gaza in the past seven months,” Ross Smith, the World Food Program’s director of emergency preparedness and response. “It’s really critical that these gains are maintained. And for that we need to have continued access and continued funding.”

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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press journalists Najib Joubain in Cairo and Sam Mednick in Tamariu, Spain, contributed.

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