‘Worst-case scenario of famine’ unfolding in Gaza, U.N.-backed body says

Famine is unfolding across most of the Gaza Strip, a U.N.-backed food security group said on Tuesday, citing months of severe aid restrictions imposed by Israel on the territory.

“The worst-case scenario of famine is playing out in Gaza,” the group, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said in a statement. The IPC is an initiative backed by the United Nations, aid agencies and governments.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the group added, noting that 1 in 3 people had gone without food for days at a time.

The announcement came as Gaza’s health ministry said that the death toll had passed 60,000 since the start of Israel’s invasion, its response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people. Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The latest crisis began in early March, when Israel cut off all food supplies to the enclave, saying without evidence that Hamas was systematically stealing aid. Although there have been food shortages in Gaza since Israel restricted aid soon after the war began almost two years ago, the situation has never been as dire as it is now.

When Israel partly lifted the blockade in late May, it changed how most food was distributed. The new method, which largely relies on private contractors instead of the United Nations, requires Palestinians to walk for miles through extremely dangerous areas to reach the distribution sites, making it almost impossible for them to find food safely or cheaply.

Israel has rejected such criticism, saying that the United Nations is welcome to deliver as much aid to Gaza as it wants. It has attributed the food shortages to the reluctance of the United Nations to do so. U.N. officials say that Israeli restrictions and combat operations make it hard to safely coordinate aid convoys.

On Sunday, Israel tried to counter that criticism by announcing daily pauses in military operations, which it said would make it easier to send in U.N. convoys. Israel also revived the practice of dropping airborne aid over Gaza.

The IPC said previous moves by Israel to ease restrictions had failed to meet the needs of Palestinians. “Humanitarian aid remains extremely restricted due to requests for humanitarian access being repeatedly denied and frequent security incidents,” it said.

Here is what to know about the situation.

What is causing starvation in Gaza?The U.N. World Food Program said last week that nearly a third of Gaza’s population was not eating for multiple days in a row. The hunger and malnutrition is largely linked to Israel’s decision to block aid between March and May, and to the way it chose to end that blockade.

Before March, food handouts were mainly distributed from hundreds of points close to where people lived, in a system overseen by the United Nations. Since late May, handouts have mainly been supplied from a few sites run by private contractors that, for most Palestinians in Gaza, can only be reached by walking for miles through Israeli military lines.

To contain crowds walking along these routes, Israeli soldiers have shot and killed hundreds of people, according to the United Nations, often turning the daily search for food into a deadly trap.

Some food is still available from shops in Palestinian-run areas, but only at astronomical prices that are unaffordable to the largely unemployed civilian population. Late last week, a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of flour cost up to $30, and a kilogram of tomatoes cost roughly $30; meat and rice were mostly unavailable on the open market.

That has forced Palestinians to routinely choose between two deadly options: risking death by starvation, or risking death by gunfire to reach food aid sites that often run out of supplies by the time most people arrive there.

What is happening at the new aid distribution sites?The sites are in areas under Israeli military control in the central and southern parts of Gaza. To reach them, Palestinians must often walk for miles. To arrive before the food runs out, they often set off at night.

That has led to large crowds moving chaotically across the devastated landscape of Gaza, usually in the dark, when visibility is poor. Sometimes scuffles break out or people veer off the designated route, witnesses have said in interviews. Responding to that unrest, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly fired at the crowds, killing hundreds of people over the last two months on the paths that lead to the sites.

The Israeli military has said it has fired “warning shots” when people approach military lines. But international doctors who have treated the wounded say that the location of their injuries indicated that soldiers systematically targeted their torsos.

What is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which oversees the new aid sites, was conceived mainly by Israeli officials and businesspeople who wanted to create a new aid system that circumvented the United Nations. It is now run by Americans who say they want to work in tandem with the United Nations. Its director, Johnnie Moore, is an American public relations professional and evangelical Christian with ties to the Trump administration.

The foundation’s previous chief, Jake Wood, resigned after news outlets, including The New York Times, raised questions about the group’s independence and its connections with Israel. The United States says it has provided the foundation with $30 million, but it is not clear who else funds the group.

On the ground in Gaza, the foundation has outsourced security and logistics to contractors led by Philip F. Reilly, a former senior CIA operative.

Israeli officials have said that the foundation’s methods are necessary to prevent Hamas and civilian looters from stealing the aid. The group said it aims to “deliver a practical, immediate, and secure approach to delivering essential aid – one that ensures the dignity of Gazans.”

Human rights organizations say the new foundation’s approach contravenes internationally established methods to protect people in need. Its “militarized model, coupled with its close collaboration with Israeli authorities, undermines the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence,” 15 rights groups from several countries said in a statement in June.

Is the U.N. sending in aid?Having blocked the United Nations and other international organizations for months, Israel is now allowing them to send their own convoys into areas controlled by Hamas. Israel has even criticized the United Nations as failing to scale up its deliveries fast enough.

U.N. officials say that Israeli restrictions make it difficult to load trucks and coordinate their onward passage through an active war zone. The U.N. office for coordination of humanitarian affairs said in a briefing note last week that it takes an average of 20 hours for trucks to enter and exit a major Israeli-controlled border area where they are loaded with food.

Lawlessness in Gaza also makes it hard for the United Nations to distribute aid. Its convoys are frequently met by thousands of desperate Palestinians, some of whom loot the trucks. The Israeli military has sometimes opened fire on crowds trying to ransack U.N. convoys, adding to the dangers and the complexity of delivering food.

Ross Smith, senior regional adviser to the World Food Program, said at a United Nations news briefing on Tuesday that “live fire” had been directed at crowds of civilians mobbing aid convoys. Humanitarian groups have strongly objected to the presence of troops near the convoys, and Smith reiterated those objections.

He said that looting incidents have involved “primarily civilians” and that the WFP does “not have evidence of large-scale looting by cartels or gangs.”

What changes did Israel make over the weekend?After the global outcry, Israel on Monday began to enact hourslong pauses in its military operations in the most densely populated parts of Gaza. It also said it was creating official “humanitarian corridors” that the U.N. convoys could use to reach those areas. Finally, it reintroduced airborne aid deliveries, allowing Arab air forces to revive a practice tried and then halted last year.

It is still unclear whether the new measures will significantly change the situation. Antoine Renard, who leads the area branch of the U.N.’s World Food Program, said on Sunday that Israel still needed to allocate more access routes for aid convoys.

On Tuesday, Smith of the WFP said there had been some improvements in aid flow and an increase in approvals from the Israeli authorities for humanitarian groups seeking to move supplies in Gaza. He said the humanitarian pauses are “welcome” but are not enough to get the volume of food that is needed into and around the enclave.

And critics say that the airdrops are mainly for show: Before they were discontinued last year, the drops often missed their targets, hitting people and property and sometimes landing in the sea or in Israel.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.