Hunger experts say the risk of famine in Gaza remains high

The Gaza Strip is still at risk of famine more than a year into the Israel-Hamas war, even as the number of people facing the most extreme level of hunger has declined in recent months, the international authority on hunger crises said.

The findings come after the United States warned Israel that it might cut off military aid if its ally does not do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people there are displaced from their homes and packed into squalid tent camps and schools-turned-shelters.

In recent weeks Israel has once again ordered the evacuation of the northern third of Gaza, and it launched another major military operation there. It allowed no food to enter the north for roughly the first two weeks of October before resuming shipments Monday.

According to the military’s own figures, a little over 5,800 tons of food have entered all of Gaza so far this month, compared with nearly 76,000 in September, and not all of those shipments have reached people inside. More than 500 trucks remain trapped on the Gaza side of the border, where the U.N. says it has difficulty retrieving the cargo because of Israeli military operations, lawlessness and other obstacles.

In a statement announcing a second shipment on Wednesday, the military said it will continue to act in accordance with international law “to facilitate and ease the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”

The latest findings on hunger in Gaza were released by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an initiative set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia that involves more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid organizations, governments and other groups. It has repeatedly warned of famine over the course of the yearlong war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel.

Over 1.8 million people, or around 86 percent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing crisis levels of hunger, defined as Phase 3 or higher on the IPC’s five-point scale. Some 133,000 people, or around 6 percent, are at Phase 5, the highest level, known as catastrophic hunger. That is down from earlier periods of the war, when nearly a third of the population was at Phase 5.

The IPC warned the situation could rapidly deteriorate, and that it expects catastrophic hunger levels to double in the coming months. It cited a slowdown in aid in recent weeks, the onset of what is typically a cold and rainy winter, and the harsh conditions people face in crowded tent camps with little in the way of food, clean water or toilets.

Israel has controlled Gaza’s entire land border since May. The Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs, known as COGAT, says it places no limits on humanitarian aid entering the territory and accuses U.N. agencies and aid groups of failing to promptly deliver it.

Those groups say their efforts are severely hampered by Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and displacement, and the breakdown of law and order in many areas.