The European Union said on Friday it was “deeply shocked” by the famine in Gaza, where the UN-backed IPC initiative reported that almost the entire population is food insecure and a quarter face a catastrophic situation.
In a joint statement, the head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, and the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, underline that this is an “unprecedented situation”, highlighting that “never CPI analysis [Classificação das Fases de Insegurança Alimentar] recorded such levels of food insecurity anywhere in the world.
For the EU, the CPI assessment, published on Thursday, denounces “a serious development that should constitute a warning signal for the entire world to act now to avoid a devastating human catastrophe.”
To prevent the population of Gaza from dying of hunger, community representatives emphasize, the protection of civilians and access to humanitarian aid and health professionals must be guaranteed, as well as the distribution of food in sufficient quantities.
According to the IPC initiative, “hostilities, including shelling, ground operations and the siege of the entire population, have caused catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity throughout the Gaza Strip.”
The entity also highlights that around 85% of the population of the Palestinian enclave (1.9 million people) is displaced and currently concentrated in an increasingly smaller geographical area.
The estimate also states that between November 24 and December 7, more than 90% of the population of the Gaza Strip (around 2.08 million people) faced high levels of acute food insecurity, classified as CPI Phase 3 or higher (crisis or worse).
Among them, more than 40% of the population (939 thousand people) was in an emergency situation (CIF Phase 4) and more than 15% (378 thousand people) was in a catastrophe situation (CIF Phase 5).
The CPI scales are currently used in 30 countries, some of which are facing the world’s worst food crises.
The government of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, announced this week that Israeli military operations have killed 20,000 people in the enclave since the start of the war on October 7, and have also injured to 52,600 people.
Israel declared war on Hamas, in retaliation for the attack carried out by the group on October 7 in Israeli territory, which left 1,139 dead, most of them civilians, according to the most recent report by Israeli authorities.
Some 250 people were also kidnapped that day and taken to Gaza, 129 of whom remain in the hands of the Islamist movement, considered a terrorist organization by the EU, the United States and Israel.
Source: TSF
