Food for Gaza

India has a role to play

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Israel's ambitions for Gaza have manifested themselves in the classic colonial tragedy of a man-made famine in Gaza City. As the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed last week, an "entirely man-made famine" has gripped Gaza's largest city and its surrounding areas, the first officially declared famine in West Asia. According to the IPC's definition, a famine occurs when at least 20 per cent of the population of a given area suffer from an extreme lack of food. By the IPC's estimates, half a million people, or a quarter of the Palestinian population in Gaza, is suffering from famine. One in three children or more are acutely malnourished and two in every 10,000 people are dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease. These tragic statistics reflect the Israeli government's attempt to displace Gazans from the remnants of their homeland.