'Critical risk' of famine in Gaza amid aid blockades

THE GAZA Strip is at critical risk of famine if Israel does not lift its blockade and stop its military campaign, food security experts have said.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

Outright famine is the mostly likely scenario unless conditions change, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

Nearly a half million Palestinians are in “catastrophic” levels of hunger, meaning they face possible starvation, the report said, while another million are at “emergency” levels of hunger.

Israel has banned any food, shelter, medicine or other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of air strikes and ground operations.

Gaza's population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has wiped out most of the capacity to produce food inside the territory.