The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), of which WHO is a member, today issued a Food Insecurity and Malnutrition Alert for the Gaza Strip. The details are as noted below.
Key highlights
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has issued a stark warning today that the worst-case scenario of Famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.
Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths. Latest data indicates that Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
Recommended actions
- End hostilities
- Ensure humanitarian access
- Protect civilians, aid workers, and civilian infrastructure
- Restore life-saving and multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance safely and with dignity
- Restore the flow of commercial goods and local production capacities.
About the IPC
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is an innovative multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making. By using the IPC classification and analytical approach, governments, UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations, civil society and other relevant actors work together to determine the severity and magnitude of acute and chronic food insecurity, and acute malnutrition situations in a country, according to internationally recognized scientific standards.
The main goal of the IPC is to provide decision-makers with a rigorous, evidence- and consensus-based analysis of food insecurity and acute malnutrition situations, to inform emergency responses as well as medium- and long-term policy and programming.