GENEVA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has warned that Israel’s starvation campaign in the Gaza Strip will have “long-term and irreversible effects” on the civilian population, pointing to international reports saying that the number of famine victims may exceed the death toll of those who were directly killed by Israel’s military attacks on Gaza, which has been ongoing since last October.
This came in a policy paper released by Euro-Med on Gaza as a “potential famine zone,” in which the organization provided an analysis of the catastrophic food situation in the war-torn coastal enclave and highlighted the indicators that signal the beginning of famine, especially in the northern governorates.
The paper was based primarily on reports issued in this regard by competent international bodies, most notably the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Lima Bustami, director of the legal department at Euro-Med, said that the truckloads of aid that enter Gaza every once in a while do not meet the minimum level of the population’s basic needs in light of their exposure to severe, continuous and accumulated deprivation of food, drinking water and medicine due to the tight Israeli blockade.
Bustami also pointed out that the population “is facing inhumane conditions, genocide, and a complete cut-off of electricity, water and fuel supplies.”
“The situation is becoming more complicated because the residents of the Gaza Strip are besieged from all sides, which prevents them from producing their needs locally in order to survive or obtaining food from other sources,” the Euro-Med official said.
Euro-Med’s paper referred to the conclusions of a report issued by IPC which says that Gaza has the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that has ever been identified in any given area or country.
By next February 7, about 53 percent of Gaza’s population will be facing acute malnutrition, while 26 of them (about half a million people) will suffer from famine and an increase in deaths resulting from hunger, malnutrition or pertinent health issues, according to the paper.
