How to prevent more hunger deaths in Gaza

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 63 people, including more than 20 children, died of hunger in the Gaza Strip in July. There are more deaths this week. Israel is now facing increased international pressure to end the war and to ensure that more aid is allowed to enter the territory. U.S. negotiators have proposed a “all-or-nothing” agreement that would occupy hostile operations in the October 7, 2023 attack if Hamas agrees to disarm and release its remaining Israeli hostages. About twenty are believed to be alive, one of them showing aging and hunger in a recently released video. But disarmament in Hamas seems unlikely, the group said that without a Palestinian state Netanyahu opposes would not consider doing so. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has no real willingness to end the Israeli campaign.

Even before October 7 and the subsequent war, the Gazas relied primarily on international aid. Many of them have difficulty getting enough food and clean water. The war has exacerbated the situation on the ground, causing an estimated 60,000 deaths. In March, Israel decided to end a temporary ceasefire with Hamas and then cut the aid almost all for more than two months. When the auxiliary allocation is restored, the main Supervision Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Misty Organization’s Nonprofit It is composed of American contractors and has a great Israeli influence. Prior to this, the United Nations had largely controlled the distribution of aid but was demoted to a smaller role. Within weeks, hundreds of Ghanwas were killed at or near GHF sites, and desperate civilians surrounded UN trucks in hope of getting food. The situation is so bleak thatEven if aid increases rapidly over the next few weeks, the deaths of hunger will almost certainly increase.

I recently spoke to Alex de Waal, one of the world’s leading famine experts, by phone, and director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. de waal has written many books on Africa, including several from Sudan, which is also Currently troubled by war and hunger. Edited in our conversation for length and clarity, we discussed more recent steps to prevent hunger in Gaza, why the return to the old system of assistance is now insufficient, what makes Gaza unique in the disaster, and what the Trump administration’s research is Attacking foreign aid Have done it to Sudan.

What do Gaza people need now? Will the fact that things have become so bad lately change the way you answer this question?

You’ve worn your fingers. If you asked me this question in early June, I would say the United Nations has an action plan, resources, skills, network, distribution plan, etc. It is in standby mode. All you need to do is give them a green light. You won’t solve all the problems because there are many basic problems with basic services: water, sanitation, the status of the healthcare system. But you will be able to stabilize the food. So, I’m going to say that if you do that, then the massive hunger aspect is almost clear to you.

Today, it is impossible for your situation to know the real numbers, but there are more and more children (probably thousands) who need to be in the hospital because they can’t eat food. They reach a severe acute malnutrition phase where their bodies cannot digest food. Therefore, these children need to be in intensive care. I just wanted to figure out how many beds there are in Gaza. It seems that there are about 10,000 surviving beds, but the numbers per day fluctuate for various reasons. Therefore, besides the flood of Gaza, food remains crucial and requires a large amount of emergency injection to strengthen capacity.

So, people experiencing hunger have reached the point where they are not enough food?

The process of hunger goes through several stages. When you run out of all your body fat, not much as your child, you can enter the stage where your body begins to consume energy. It basically starts to eat the brain – it is eating the essential organs: the heart, kidneys, liver, brain, stomach lining. When you reach that stage, you will die, or you are in intensive care to prevent you from dying.

I want to take a step back. You’re suggesting the system the United Nations has implemented before we get to this point – how does this work and why is it insufficient now?

As of February, during the ceasefire, there were about four hundred places in the United Nations and its partner organizations that helped people directly. That will include hot food. Sometimes there are about 85,000 hot meals a day, and then there are a lot of nutritional supplements and special foods for children.

Therefore, its working level is small, but the pit stop is not enough. One of the biggest problems it faces is Israel’s very unpredictable licensing system. These supplies are unreliable due to Israel’s arbitrary and unpredictable conditions and inspections at the border. Some trucks are completely blocked, some are interrupted, and some are movable. There must be some security for those who can move, some of whom are either armed gangs or Israel have a lot of trouble that can destroy them in some way even during a ceasefire. Then, in early March, you imposed a full siege without any action. Israel has begun military operations again. Then, in May, access to both forms is allowed again. One is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The other is the United Nations’ limited activities.

It is important to note that the United Nations is working to enable locals (sometimes clans, sometimes community groups) to protect aid, as the biggest threat is from armed gangs. In fact, the largest armed gang is an organization called Abu Shabab Gang, which has the support of Israel. [Yasser Abu Shabab, the group’s leader, has denied that it receives support from Israel.] But there are reasons why it is difficult to do this. On June 26, a community group organized their own young people, who armed some aid trucks. The video was filmed and circulated by members of the Israeli government, he said, look, it was Hamas stealing aid. So the system has tried for a day, but it has not continued. The shipment was actually tracked, it went to the World Food Program warehouse and was distributed safely. [The I.D.F. did not respond to a request for comment.]

In late May, GHF became the main provider of Gaza aid. At these locations, hundreds of people were killed. There are only four of them, not the four hundred you are talking about. When you say in the first answer, you can’t just open the old UN system – is that because some kids now need more kids than food or logistics? My feeling is that even delivering trucks to these four hundred sites is messy because people are so desperate.

I mean something mostly medical, but you are right about despair and the collapse of social order. I really don’t know how anyone would solve this problem. But one thing I want to say is that it would be better if people believed more aid. One of the reasons you have a U.N. distribution problem is that no one knows when the next one will come. If you do this in Somalia, you recruit the community and say, OK, that’s what we’re going to do. This is the amount to come. This will place one; this will place B. Everyone knows what’s going on. You can then invite the community to provide protection.