Famine in Gaza
Over 132,000 Children Under Five are at risk of Death from Malnutrition
Today, the worst has come: the number of people who have died from malnutrition has reached the famine level in Gaza. The exceptionally high bar for a famine has been met in the northern Gaza Governorates, and experts are predicting that the famine will expand to the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates by September.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for Gaza today, over half a million people are facing catastrophic conditions and at least 132,000 children under the age of five are at risk of death from malnutrition. This official declaration confirms what aid organizations like Project HOPE have been warning for months: millions of civilians are facing starvation, and countless lives have already been lost.
“For well over a year, Project HOPE and the rest of the NGO community have been sounding the alarms about the conditions in Gaza, including mass civilian casualties, a multi-month aid blockade, hundreds dead from starvation, and attacks on health infrastructure,” said Project HOPE’s President & CEO, Rabih Torbay. “For months, our health clinics have been full of malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women and, for months, we have fought tooth and nail to continue providing the lifesaving nutritional assistance to stave off deadly malnutrition.”
Project HOPE operates health clinics in Gaza, providing over 2,500 medical consultations daily, many of which are for malnutrition. In Deir al-Balah, our nutritional team has been treating Nour, a 10-month-old baby who lives with her parents in a small tent in Deir al-Balah. Nour’s mother Ilham’s health has been severely affected by the lack of food, which in turn has impacted her ability to breastfeed: “I have no food, no milk to feed her. Seeing my daughter hungry and having no food to give her breaks my heart. I feel powerless.”
“For the first time in our careers, we are witnessing helplessly as our colleagues and their families starve. Tragically, a famine declaration comes too late to save some of the most vulnerable. Traditional food aid will be far from adequate to save more lives, as catastrophic hunger levels require specialized medical interventions,” Torbay continued. “With each passing day, we are witnessing the loss of an entire generation of children. Now, it will require far more than just ‘flooding the zone’ with food – we must demand unhindered humanitarian access for not just food, but the medical supplies and personnel that will save lives.”
Project HOPE urgently calls on Israel to allow full, safe, and immediate humanitarian access to Gaza before more lives are lost.
