In the Gaza Strip, hunger kills even more than Israeli bombs

The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic and almost the entire population is at risk of famine.

• Twenty percent of Gaza's population is acutely food insecure.
• 96 percent, almost the entire Palestinian population, is at risk of famine.
• In the long term, hunger and disease, a consequence of Israeli bombs, could kill more than the bombs themselves.

The 96 percent of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip is at risk famine and in conditions of severe food insecurity.THE new data of theUN show how the problem of the Palestinian territory is not just the Israeli bombings, which since 7 October have caused over 37 thousand deaths, but also the humanitarian repercussions deriving from the offensive which in the medium to long term could cause many more deaths than the raids.

There Geneva Declaration after all esteem that for every direct death in a conflict there are four more indirect ones.This is why the death toll in the Gaza Strip risks being much more serious than we think.

A humanitarian tragedy

THE'Integrated food security phase classification (IPC), a UN inter-agency, published a report which underlines that the 96 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip, i.e. 2.15 million people, will face high levels of food insecurity until September 2024.Catastrophic numbers if you consider that in December 2023, 20 percent of the population was on the brink of famine, which then rose to 50 percent in March 2024.

Looking at the data in more detail, the report shows that the 20 percent of the population, almost half a million people, is located in the so-called “phase 5”, that is, the most serious level of food insecurity.Approximately 750 thousand people, 33 percent of the population, are in "phase 4", that is, in state of emergency.If in the north of the Strip the situation has improved slightly due to the arrival of the humanitarian trucks, in the south, where the Israeli military offensive is being concentrated, the humanitarian situation is becoming increasingly tragic.

Direct and indirect deaths

“Hunger and obstacles to humanitarian work are used as weapon of war in Gaza, as demonstrated by the latest IPC analysis on food insecurity", underlined Natalia Anguera, responsible for the Middle East at Action against hunger.From Doctors Without Borders instead they let people know that “our medical staff at one of its clinics, in just five weeks, reported approx 40 cases of boys and girls suffering from severe and life-threatening malnutrition", with symptoms such as "extremely low weight, fatigue, low blood pressure”.

From October 7th to today the Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip has caused over 37 thousand deaths.But the famine that is tormenting the territory, a direct effect of the war, could do much more in the long term.There Geneva Declaration esteem four deaths as side effects of wars for every direct death:data on food insecurity and the circulation of diseases arriving from the Gaza Strip seem in line with this prediction. Hunger and disease, a consequence of Israeli bombs, could kill more than the bombs themselves.