International Pressure on Israel averted Widespread Gaza Famine this Summer, but the Danger is Back: Refugees International
Juan Cole 09/15/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Refugees International has issued a new report about hunger in Gaza.
The authors say, “Contrary to the official Israeli pushback, research and analysis by Refugees International has corroborated evidence of a severe hunger crisis in Gaza and found consistent indications that famine-like conditions occurred in northern areas during the first half of 2024.”
Translation: The Israelis are lying about it, but there was famine in northern Gaza in February-March.
In this regard, they quote a Palestinian aid worker: “There were many cases of extreme starvation throughout Gaza, especially in the north. After the [November] ceasefire failed and the IDF controlled all access into Gaza, blocking entry points, there were very few supplies for two months… People would go out to get flour, stay out for three or four days [waiting for scheduled convoys], fail, and return home empty-handed, risking their lives for food.”
An UNRWA worker said, “Even when UNRWA sent aid convoys with flour and supplies [to the north], some were looted along the way. When they finally reached distribution points, the Israeli military fired on people trying to receive food aid—blood mixed with flour, it was horrible.” We know of several such “flour massacres” by Israeli troops.
The RI report continues, “Refugees International also found that the ebbs and flows in hunger conditions are closely linked to Israeli government restrictions and concessions on aid access, and to the conduct of the Israeli military.”
Translation: The Israeli military caused the famine by throttling aid and by military actions that made what aid did come into Gaza impossible to distribute.
Then they say, “International pressure on the Israeli government in March and April, following warnings of imminent famine in parts of Gaza, prompted a series of Israeli concessions around aid and commercial access.”
Translation: The International Court of Justice announced that “famine is setting in” in Gaza on March 29, 2024. The Biden administration freaked out at the reports reaching them from aid agencies on the ground in March-April and read Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the riot act, forcing him to let more food aid in and to stop obstructing its distribution with arbitrary bombings of the sort that killed 6 World Food Kitchen workers.
New paragraph: “These shifts enabled a brief period of stabilizing conditions in April that altered the rapidly worsening hunger trajectory seen in February and early March, and that likely deferred an otherwise imminent descent into widespread famine.”
Had it not been for this severe international pressure on Netanyahu, and his acquiescence to it, widespread famine would have broken out in Gaza this summer. The April food pipeline changed the situation dramatically.
They add, “However, this improvement was short-lived, and conditions have again been deteriorating badly since the Rafah offensive in May.”
Translation: When Netanyahu violated President Joe Biden’s red line and invaded and destroyed Rafah, he displaced over a million people yet again, engaged in widespread military maneuvers that destroyed Rafah city, and again made food hard to get. Likewise, he took control of the Rafah crossing, through which the Egyptians had allowed aid to enter, and shut it down. That loss of a key provisioning checkpoint again raised the specter of famine.
After Rafah, the food deliveries through Israeli checkpoints fell off a cliff, as the World Food Programme chart shows:
Hat tip Refugees International .
They conclude: “Without a more widespread and enduring course-correction on aid access, civilian protection, and humanitarian security, there remains a grave risk of famine conditions spiraling once again.”
Translation: The March projections of massive famine were temporarily averted but deadly hunger is now again stalking 2 million people.
They remind us that famine is defined by the IPC this way:
- “Famine (IPC Phase 5) Definition: Famine is classified as an extreme deprivation of food affecting a population, leading to starvation, death, and destitution.”
It is officially declared when:
• 20% or more households cannot access enough food.
• 30% or more children suffer from acute malnutrition.
• Two or more deaths per 10,000 people happen daily due to starvation or related causes”
They plead with the Israeli government to 1) Open more border checkpoints for ongoing humanitarian access, and reinstate critical services to avert any further danger of famine; 2) Halt compulsory evacuations, which undermine the effectiveness of humanitarian efforts and significantly increase the vulnerability of Palestinian civilians; 3) Guarantee that the Israeli army strictly follows deconfliction protocols to ensure the safe passage of humanitarian aid and staff throughout Gaza; and 4) Remove all limitations on crucial aid supplies and allow UN agencies or agreed-upon neutral parties to conduct inspections, following models from Syria and Yemen.
I think we can reverse engineer these recommendations to conclude that the Israelis are not operating enough border checkpoints for entry of aid, and have cut off severely needed services that might forestall a famine.
Further, constant Israeli expulsions of Palestinians here and there are vastly increasing the problem of hunger and the likelihood of famine and they should cut it out.
Then, the Israeli military should stop firing on aid workers, killing and injuring them after careful agreements were crafted that the aid workers could safely operate.
Finally, the Israelis are limiting necessary aid supplies with their own arbitrary inspections. They often send back entire truckloads because they found one item they considered prohibited, like surgical scissors.
The report goes on to take apart the mealy-mouthed Israeli excuses and denials when presented with this reality.
Malnutrition is now 7 to 8% in some governorates of Gaza. Things all along have been worse than the projections.
RI warns, “As a result of these cumulative challenges, one UN official told Refugees International that Gaza was “always two weeks away from a famine” due to the IDF’s refusal to normalize free-flowing aid. UN health officials have reported a significant surge in documented malnutrition cases, with a 170 percent increase across Gaza and a staggering 300 percent rise in the northern region. The surge reflects a more comprehensive screening effort for Palestinian children, previously infeasible due to access constraints and security challenges. The new data reveals that many cases of acute malnutrition had gone unreported, as earlier figures had underestimated the crisis’s scale.”
If the apocalyptic figures coming out of Gaza were an underestimate, then the situation is dire indeed.