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Said Khatib

Famine may already be happening in northern Gaza, and it risks spreading across the besieged enclave, plunging 2.2 million Palestinians into the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world, the globe’s leading body on food emergencies said Monday.

The new report from a cluster of international organizations and charities known as the <a href="https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Feb_July2024_Special_Brief.pdf" target=_blank>Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC</a>, outlined a devastating situation with up to half the population of Gaza — 1.1 million people — facing catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation between now and July. The most immediately affected areas are in the northern regions, which Israeli forces cut off from the enclave’s southern half and which only a trickle of aid has been able to enter.

Compared with the IPC’s previous analysis in December, acute food insecurity in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/09/gaza-strip-israel-hamas-explained/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Gaza Strip</a> has deepened and widened, with nearly twice as many people projected to suffer those conditions by July. The most dire projection is based on an escalation of the conflict, including a ground offensive in Rafah.

In the IPC’s five-tier classification of food crises, Gaza now has the largest percentage of a population to receive its most severe rating since the body began reporting in 2004, Beth Bechdol, deputy director general at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told The Washington Post.

Mahmoud Issa

By comparison, today in Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan — where millions are suffering crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity — none of the population falls into the worst tier of catastrophic food shortages, Bechdol said.

People in areas designated at Phase 5 are considered to be “starving” and facing a significantly increased risk of acute malnutrition and death.

<b>“</b>So, for Gaza to have 1.1 million people in IPC 5 is unprecedented,” she said. She added: “This is 100 percent a man-made crisis. There’s no hurricane, there’s no cyclone, there’s no 100-year flood. There’s no protracted year-on-year drought.”

The report is likely to add fuel to the increasingly sharp criticism of Israel from governments in the United States and Europe about the grim dimensions of the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, repeated his assertion that Israel was using starvation as a “weapon of war.” He noted that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had recently told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “we cannot stand by and watch Palestinians starve.”

“In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine; we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people,” Borrell said at the start of a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels. “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war.”

Moamen al-Harthani, a 29-year-old resident of the northern Gaza town of Jabalya, described how people in the north were eating weeds and other plants to survive.

“There is no rice, no sugar, no beans, no lentils. … No fruit or vegetables,” Harthani said. “People eat the food of animals and livestock,” he said. Unable to find or afford flour, Harthani makes a bread-like substitute out of animal feed.

The IPC, an international initiative to classify <a href="https://executiveboard.wfp.org/document_download/WFP-0000102571" target=_blank>food insecurity and malnutrition</a> and assesses conditions, does not issue an official declaration of famine — a move left to senior local authorities or the highest United Nations official in an affected area. A famine designation would elevate the crisis to a major talking point at the U.N. Security Council and compel high-level crisis talks among humanitarian bodies and groups.

Hamas has been using the word famine in its official statements for months. Hamas spokesperson Basem Naim said he did not expect to issue “a new specific and official announcement about determining the beginning or end of the famine.”

On Monday, Israeli authorities denied Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), <a href="https://x.com/UNLazzarini/status/1769711761136009310?s=20" target=_blank>entry into Gaza</a>, he said. “My visit today was supposed to coordinate and improve the humanitarian response,” Lazzarini said, sharing the IPC famine projection. UNRWA is the largest humanitarian aid group serving Gaza but has come <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/18/unrwa-hamas-gaza-israel/" target=_blank>under attack</a> from Israel over allegations that a handful of its staff were involved in the Oct 7. attack.

Also on Monday, a Famine Review Committee made up of leading independent international food security, nutrition and mortality experts issued a conclusion that the IPC’s findings were “plausible” and warned that famine in northern Gaza<a href="https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Famine_Committee_Review_Report_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Feb_July2024_Special_Brief.pdf" target=_blank> “is now projected and imminent</a>.” It noted that famine conditions for acute food insecurity and malnutrition had already been surpassed, though it said it was unclear if child mortality and non-trauma death rate thresholds had been reached.

A famine in Gaza would follow one that afflicted 80,000 people in South Sudan in 2017 and 490,000 people in Somalia in 2011.

“This is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system — anywhere, anytime,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Monday.

The war has destroyed and upended all parts of Gaza’s food system — from the fruits, vegetables, livestock and fish raised on farms to the bakeries and factories that produced breads and dairy products. The percentage of damaged agriculture land increased from 25 percent to 60 percent between November and January, the report said. It noted that more than 300 barns, 100 agricultural warehouses, 46 farm storage facilities, 119 animal shelters, 200 farms, as well over 600 wells used for irrigation have been destroyed, while most livestock has been abandoned, slaughtered or sold.

During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims typically have an early-morning, pre-fast bite and then a large meal when fasting ends after sundown. But this year, Gazans told The Post, they are fasting regardless of Ramadan. Since the war began, Harthani said, he has lost around 60 pounds.

Harthani’s wife and 6-week-old child relocated south to Rafah, where they thought it would be safer. But in Rafah, his wife is similarly going hungry, as she can’t afford sufficient food and formula due to sky-high wartime inflation, he said.

Both mother and newborn are weak from malnutrition. His wife recently developed liver disease, Harthani said.

The latest analysis was conducted remotely between Feb. 26 and March 1, by more than 40 experts from 18 agencies, the IPC said. But the new assessment — the IPC’s grimmest to date — suggests that northern Gaza is either already in the grip of famine or could reach that point by May.

Mohammed Salem

The findings in the latest report confirm warnings of impending famine in parts of Gaza, in the absence of a cease-fire, from U.N. and other aid agencies in recent months.  At least <a href="https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5167" target=_blank>27 children</a> have died of malnutrition in recent weeks, local health officials have said, underscoring the vast need.

Humanitarian officials blame the hunger crisis in the north on limited entry points for aid, a time-consuming Israeli inspection process and Israeli attacks on U.N. aid convoys and the police protecting them. Israel denies limiting the flow of aid to Gaza. It has accused the United Nations of failing to distribute food aid to those in need — or diverting it to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/israel-hamas-war/?itid=lk_inline_manual_18" target=_blank>Hamas</a>.

Aid shipments, the report said, have been constrained by direct strikes on humanitarian convoys, detention of humanitarian staff, road closures, checkpoints and related blockages or delays on main transportation corridors. Road damage from bombardments and traffic of heavy military vehicles as well as an estimated 12,000 metric tons of debris have added to complications.

Palestinian officials say more than 100 people were killed and 700 injured in Gaza City late last month after desperate civilians rushed an aid convoy. The fatal incident prompted the Biden administration to launch food drops into Gaza and express mounting frustration with Israeli controls on aid convoys into the enclave.

According to the report, virtually all households in Gaza are skipping meals every day and adults are reducing their meals so that children can eat. In northern Gaza, people in nearly two-thirds of all households had gone “entire days and nights without eating” at least 10 times in the last 30 days, with 1 in 3 children under the age of 2 “acutely malnourished.”

The IPC blamed the famine-like conditions in Gaza on the “widespread, intense, and relentless conflict” that has forced approximately 1.9 million people, or 85 percent of Gaza’s population, to flee their homes, with over 31,000 fatalities and 73,000 injuries reported by Gaza health authorities.

“The escalation of hostilities has halted supplies of water, food and fuel, causing the collapse of all food-related sectors, including vegetable production, livestock production, and fisheries and aquaculture,” said Maximo Torero Cullen, the FAO’s chief economist.

An earlier IPC assessment of Gaza in December concluded that its <a href="https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-94/en/" target=_blank>entire population </a>was highly food-insecure and at risk of famine.

Amir Cohen

In addition to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/02/us-air-drop-gaza-aid/" target=_blank>airdrops</a> of small amounts of food, the first aid shipment by sea dispatched by nonprofit <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/15/gaza-food-boat-jose-andres/" target=_blank>World Central Kitchen</a> reached Gaza last week. But experts say these alone cannot contain the emergency.

Ahmed Najjar, 29, a resident of Jabalya, is among the thousands of Gazans who for weeks have gathered late at night at key junctures to try to intercept food trucks entering the north.

On Thursday night, more than 20 people were killed at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City, according to Palestinian officials, who said Israeli forces fired at the crowds. The Israeli military blamed Palestinian gunmen. The Post could not independently confirm these accounts. Najjar said there was shelling by Israeli forces. He watched the injured and dead be pulled from the center of crowds around the trucks and he left without getting any flour.

“The strong eat,” he said of the situation. “The weak die.”

<i>Beatriz Rios contributed to this report.</i>

SAJA Daniel Pearl Award 2022 (India under Surveillance)

SAJA Award for Business Reporting 2022 (Facebook under Fire)

Member of the team to win the George Polk Award for Technology Reporting 2021 (The Pegasus Project)

Honorable mention, SABEW Award 2021 (Facebook Papers)

New York Society for Professional Journalists Award, 2016

Radio Digital Television Network Foundation Fellow, 2016

Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation Scholar, 2015

Honorable mention, World Media Summit Global Awards, 2014

Toto Funds the Arts Award, 2013

Delhi University, BA in English

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, MA in Journalism

Niha Masih is a reporter at The Washington Post's Seoul hub, where she covers breaking news in the United States and across the world. Previously, she was The Post's correspondent in India, where she covered the rise of majoritarian nationalism, conflict in Kashmir, the covid crisis and digital surveillance of citizens.

Niha Masih

Winner, National Press Foundation’s Innovative Storytelling Award

Winner, Cine Award

Finalist, Overseas Press Award 

Winner, Maryland-DC-Virginia Press Association Award

Knight Innovator in Residence at Florida International University

Florida International University, BA in communications

Anthony Faiola is Rome Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. Since joining the paper in 1994, he has served as bureau chief in Miami, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and New York and additionally worked as roving correspondent at large. 

Anthony Faiola

Fulbright research fellow in Egypt 

Wesleyan University, BA in College Social Studies 

Oxford University, MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies 

Miriam Berger, a staff writer writer on The Post's international news desk in Washington, has since Oct. 7 been on assignment in Jerusalem, where she covers Israel, the Palestinian territories and the war in Gaza. Before joining The Post, she was based in Jerusalem and Cairo and was a freelance reporter.

Miriam Berger

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Famine projected to begin any time now in northern Gaza, IPC says

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A photo of two children, covered in dirt and dust, sitting on the ground, with the headline: Famine may already be in northern Gaza, leading aid groups say

Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

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Famine may already be in northern Gaza, leading aid groups say

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