Some parts of Gaza are officially experiencing hunger, according to a report on Friday by the UN-backed initiative.
During almost two years of war, Israel occasionally restricted or blocked aid invasions into devastated enclaves.
Some people died of starvation and starvation, while others were killed trying to get assistance at a disputed distribution site run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The integrated food security stage classification (IPC) report stated that hunger has been confirmed in Gaza province. Gaza City is also the site of the major new Israeli attacks.
“Meltilization threatens the lives of 132,000 children under five, less than five, including 41,000 severe cases, double the number in May,” he added.
The coordination of government activities in the territory (Cogat), an Israeli agency tasked with distributing aid to Gaza, rejected the IPC report prior to its release, stating that it “relies on partially biased data and superficial information derived from Hamas.”
Cogat said the IPC “completely ignores the extensive humanitarian efforts made in Gaza,” adding that the report ignored the information provided to the authors by Israel.
Cogat also argued that while Gaza’s “overall trends have changed,” Hamas continues to exploit humanitarian aid. More than 100,000 trucks have come to Gaza since the start of the war, Cogat said.
But the tragic testimony and imagery of the United Nations that emerged from Gaza are different pictures.
US President Donald Trump said last month that Gaza has “real starvation,” contradicting a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher urged the world to read the “cover to cover” IPC report.
“Read it not as words or numbers, but as names and lives, but with sadness and anger. It is undoubtedly this unanswered testimony: hunger, gaza hunger.
CNN, along with other media, has reported widely on hunger and starvation in Gaza.
According to medical sources, CNN reported the death of 4-year-old Razan Abu Zahel, who died last month from complications caused by hunger and malnutrition at a hospital in central Gaza. Her skeleton was placed on a stone slab.
Two more deaths from starvation were recorded by the Ministry of Health on Thursday, bringing the total number of people who died of malnutrition to 271, including 112 children.
In IPC systems (a five-phase scale used to measure food anxiety severity), hunger can only be declared if the data indicates that a certain threshold is met.
These conditions are as follows: At least 20% of all households need to face extreme food shortages, and 30% or more children must be malnourished, based on anthropometric measurements, or more than 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition.
Niamh Kennedy of CNN contributed the report.
