Published 08/22/2025 15:09 | Edited 08/22/2025 17:14
The Gaza Strip officially entered the list of the world’s hunger -plated regions. According to a report released on Friday (22) by the Integrated Classification of Food Safety Phases (IPC), a UN-supported body, 500,000 Palestinians live under “catastrophic” conditions, characterized by misery, extreme hunger and high risk of death.
This is the first time hunger has been declared in the Middle East since the creation of the methodology in 2004.
Three criteria met for the declaration
The IPC raised the city of Gaza and surrounding areas to phase 5 of the international scale of acute food insecurity, the most critical degree of the classification.
According to international parameters, hunger is only recognized when three conditions are met: Israel,
- At least 20% of households face extreme food lack;
- 30% of children show signs of acute malnutrition;
- Two to four people every 10,000 die daily.
- In Gaza, the three limits were exceeded after 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Crisis must expand
The analysis projects that hunger will spread to Deir Al-Balah and Khan Youis by the end of September.
Currently, in addition to the 500,000 hungry, another 1.07 million Palestinians – more than half of the Enclave population – face levels of “food emergency”, the second most serious category. The rest of the 2 million inhabitants of Gaza also suffers from severe hunger.
Factors that led to collapse
The report points out that the escalation of the crisis was caused by a combination of factors:
- Intensification of combat;
- Restrictions imposed by Israel to the entry of humanitarian aid;
- collapse of health, sanitation and supply systems;
- Destruction of local agriculture;
- repeated forced displacements of the population.
- The UN warns that hunger is not limited to food scarcity, but reflects the deliberate collapse of systems essential to human survival.
UN talks about war crime
UN officials point Israel as a direct person for hunger. The High Human Rights Commissioner, Volker Turk, said that blocking the entry of supplies and the destruction of agricultural land configures the use of hunger as a method of war – a practice considered a crime of war on international law.
“A failure of humanity”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that hunger in Gaza is “a disaster caused by man, a moral accusation and a failure of humanity itself.”
He defended an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and humanitarian access without restrictions.
“People are starving. Children are dying. And those who have a duty to act are failing. Enough. The time to act is not tomorrow – it is now,” he said.
Israeli offensive advances
The publication of the report coincides with the intensification of the Israeli offensive to occupy the city of Gaza. On Thursday (21), five military divisions and 60,000 reservists were mobilized in the operation “Carriages of Gideon II”.
Mediators – United States, Egypt and Qatar – await Netanyahu’s response to a truce proposal accepted by Hamas.
Source: vermelho.org.br
