An “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area amid deteriorating conditions that threaten an exponential increase in deaths across the devastated territory, UN-backed experts have declared.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognized organization that classifies the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition, found that three key thresholds for famine had been met, signaling a major escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report says. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading.”
In order to declare a famine, strict criteria must be met: at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food; at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and two people for every 10,000 die each day due to “outright starvation.”
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