N. Gaza may be enduring famine

JERUSALEM, Israel — An independent group of experts warned Tuesday that it’s possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it.

“It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, said about famine in Gaza.

Concerns about deadly hunger have been high in recent months and spiked after the head of the World Food Program last month said northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of war. Experts at the U.N. agency later said Cindy McCain was expressing a personal opinion.

An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30 percent of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.

That’s according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a collection of U.N. agencies, governments and other bodies that in March warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

Tuesday’s report by FEWS NET is the first technical assessment by an international organization saying that famine is possibly occurring in northern Gaza.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development, FEWS NET is an internationally recognized authority on famine that provides evidence-based and timely early warning information for food insecurity. It also helps inform decisions on humanitarian responses in some of the world’s most food insecure countries.

But for a formal declaration of famine, the data must be there.

Such a declaration could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court as well as at the International Court of Justice, where Israel faces allegations of genocide.