Gaza has been at risk of famine for months- experts. Here's why they haven't declared one

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Gaza poses a major challenge for experts because Israel severely limits access to the territory, making it difficult and in some cases impossible to gather data.

 

The leading international authority on food crises is the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia. It includes more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies.

 

While the IPC says it is the “primary mechanism” used by the international community to conclude whether a famine is happening or projected, it typically doesn’t make such a declaration itself. Famine declarations usually come from the U.N. or governments.

 

Gaza has been at risk of famine for months, experts say. Here's why they haven't declared one

 

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GENEVA (Reuters) -The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and accused Israel of paralysing its work.

 

"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo. 

 

The council's comments echo those made earlier on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency, who said UNRWA's staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion. 

 

No aid supplies left and staff are starving in Gaza, says Norwegian Refugee Council

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The journalists' association of the French wire service Agence France-Presse (AFP) warned on Monday that staff working with the agency in Gaza are at risk of starvation and that "without intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die."

 

The Société des Journalistes de l’Agence France-Presse (SDJ) said that the agency still has "one freelance writer, three photographers, and six video freelancers" working in Gaza after most of its staff left the Strip last year.

 

Along with a handful of others, they are some of the last Western journalists reporting on the ground in Gaza.

 

AFP journalists at risk of starving to death in Gaza 'without intervention,' news agency says