Gaza famine ‘a moment of collective shame for world’

Britain blames Israel over refusal to allow in sufficient aid

- ALASTAIR JAMIESON MICHELLE NICHOLS

Gaza’s largest city is officially suffering from a manmade famine that has already affected more than half a million Palestinians and is likely to spread, the world’s leading authority on food crises declared yesterday.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people - close to a quarter of all Palestinians in Gaza - are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of next month.

Foreign secretary David Lammy called it a “moral outrage” and blamed Israel’s “refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza”.

Israel, which has repeatedly downplayed the extent of hunger inside Gaza, dismissed the report as false and biased; Benjamin Netanyahu said it was an “outright lie”.

But United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said it was “irrefutable testimony” and described the declaration as a “moment of collective shame for the world”.

“It is a famine that we repeatedly warned of but that the international media has not been allowed in to cover,” he said at a news conference.