North of Gaza: hunger data show alarming deterioration

On Friday, 8 November 2024, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review alerted the ‘worst-case scenario’ for the northern area of the Gaza Strip: Due to an escalation and intensification of hostilities, displacement orders, halt in commercial trucks, and disintegration of social safety nets, famine is imminent unless immediate action is taken.

Since the initial displacement orders in some northern areas of the Gaza Strip at the beginning of October 2024, in the last three weeks, over 71,000 thousand people have been displaced from the North Gaza governorate to Gaza City. An estimated 100,000 people remain in the besieged areas. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip has reached its lowest point since October 2023. An estimated 80 percent of the market areas in the North are damaged or completely destroyed.

In the last two weeks, Action Against Hunger teams have distributed over 1,000 dry food parcels to displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, some of whom fled the besieged areas of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. “For all types of assistance, Gaza depends only on what comes from outside. Especially in the North and Gaza City,” one displaced Palestinian told Action Against Hunger staff. “There is nothing nutritious here. Just cans. No vegetables, no meat, no chicken, no fruit.”

Without an immediate end to the siege, assured safe humanitarian access, and the flooding of fresh food items through all possible crossing points, such dry food parcels will only continue to meet a fraction of the humanitarian needs. Action Against Hunger reminds the international community: A declaration of famine does not simply mean people are hungry. It means people are already dying.

Action Against Hunger teams continue to work in the Gaza Strip with nutrition programs, humanitarian assistance, and the provision of potable water. Since the beginning of the conflict, we have provided vital assistance to over one million people through these programs

After over a year of intense violence and continued atrocities, particularly in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, the international community must pursue all possible steps to prevent further deterioration in humanitarian access, ensure an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages, and put a stop to the use of starvation as a weapon of warfare.