Today, the integrated classification of the food security phase (IPC) – the global golden initiative responsible for assessing hunger and food insecurity – has elected a devastating but predictable analysis: famine, the worst case, humanitarian actors have warned for 21 months, takes place in Gaza.
According to the IPC, an organization that prides itself on technical expertise and is not given to the hyperbole, two of the three thresholds necessary to classify famine to Gaza have been exceeded. Food consumption and acute malnutrition, especially in northern Gaza and the city of Gaza, have reached catastrophic levels. The third threshold, the mortality of the famine and the related causes, remains not verified. Just because people don’t die. Indeed, the conditions in the field – to the permanence of humanitarian access, unleashed conflicts and the collapse of the health system – make data collection very difficult.
The choice is deadly and clear. Why wait for a post-mortem when we can save these lives now?
IPC analysis is not a warning. It is a photograph, with those of emaciated children who shocked the world. I myself heard it from the personnel of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on the ground in Gaza. We must believe our eyes and ears: it is not a theoretical risk. It is a lived reality and it happens now. The government of the restrictions of Israel for aid created the famine conditions – and the window to prevent mass death closes quickly.
This famine is an artificial disaster. It is not a consequence of natural rarity, but political choices. And the previous history paints a striking table of the cost of inaction. In Somalia in 2011, famine was only officially declared after more than 250,000 people have already died, half of whom are children under the age of five. Despite months of warning and aggravation of drought, the world response only increased after the declaration – and long after being able to save the most vulnerable. It was the most deadly food crisis of the 21st century. The risk that is seized is the history repeating itself.
At the IRC, we already see the consequences of inaction. One in five children in Gaza City is now acute malnutrition. Our Palestinian partners and IRC staff offer nutritional support, child protection, health and hygiene under incessant pressure – and often without food or electricity themselves. I heard staff who stretch a meal for an entire day. They tell us about children too weak to walk and emaciated people collapse in the street.
IRC knows too well what severe acute malnutrition does to children’s body. It destroys immunity, making common diseases such as diarrhea or fatal pneumonia. It stops brain development, alters physical growth and leaves consequences for life. A child suffering from severe acute malnutrition is 12 times more likely to die of illness than a well -nourished child. Even those who survive the scars of this crisis for decades.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of creeping malnutrition and growing death caused by famine, Gaza remains almost sealed. At the IRC, we have several tonnes of ready -made vital medical supplies and while waiting to enter – again to treat thousands of people and strengthen a health system that collapses under the weight of war and deprivation. These supplies are inactive. Hospitals are either destroyed or outdated. The fuel is rare. Food prices jumped 700%. The essential services of Gaza collapsed.
Instead of opening terrestrial routes, the international community turned to air parachids and sea routes, stopgaps which, although well -intentioned, do not replace safe and sustained access. Air parameters are ineffective, limited to the scale, dangerous, unable to provide specialized food and medical care necessary to save children with malnutrition. Land routes are not only the most effective option, they are the only realistic option on a scale and accelerate this crisis. IRC knows it from experience. In each major food crisis to which we have responded – from Ethiopia to South Sudan – it is a opportune, coordinated and unhindered access that makes the difference between life and death.
The solution is tragically simple. First of all, open all the viable terrian passages – not for hours and not with warnings, but on a large scale, with rapid screening and consistency, to flood Gaza immediately. We know that in the ceasefire in January and February this year, the flow of humanitarian and commercial goods made the difference immediately. Second, make sure you make an endless access to humanitarian organizations to reach children and their families – from Rafah north of Gaza. Third, the political track still counts. A ceasefire remains vital. Endless to hostilities, no humanitarian corridor can operate safely, Palestinian civilians can be reached on a large scale and hostages will not return home.
It is not a crisis that requires more data. It requires more determination, not of those who have trouble surviving, but of the national and international leadership which must denounce the blockade which pushes people to more death. The world knows what’s going on in Gaza. The cost of delay will be measured in the life of lost children. It is too late for too much, but not for everyone. The choice is ours and the moment is now.
