Is there Famine in Gaza?

Israel has been accused many times of deliberately starving the people of Gaza during the eight months of the war with Hamas. While some Israeli politicians may have threatened to do that in their initial anger over the 7th October massacre, Israel has for months now stressed that claims of "starvation" in Gaza are false.

Nevertheless, media groups, international organisations, and court hearings continue to spread the idea that Israel has been preventing food from reaching the population in Gaza. Many of those accusations were based upon a report published by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in March claiming that famine was imminent as 1.1 million people in Gaza were experiencing catastrophic food insecurity.

Yet even though that same group has now published a new report concluding that the previous report was flawed and famine was not plausible, reports of starvation continue and the new analysis is being widely ignored.

A recent BBC News article is a prime example, highlighting a Gazan mother’s desperate plea to feed her baby, and quoting a World Health Organization claim that more than 8,000 Gazan children under the age of five have been diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition since the war began.

What many articles like that omit is any serious review of the way Hamas have hijacked large amounts of the food supplied and either hoarded it for its own use or sold it in the Gazan markets - making a huge profit from what was provided free of charge.

Two professors from Columbia University have analysed available data and say "findings demonstrate that sufficient amounts of food are being supplied into Gaza." They noted that it is "a myth that Israel is responsible for famine in Gaza," and argue that the International Criminal Court and United Nations have joined Hamas in blaming Israel for a "famine that never was, hoping to stop the war."

This statement by Doron Spielman of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office: