
As Israel’s offensive in Gaza rages on, people across the entire Gaza Strip find themselves in increasingly dire circumstances, with nearly the entire population experiencing high levels of food insecurity, including malnutrition, hunger and starvation. A famine review analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported on June 25, 2024, that “a high risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues and humanitarian access is restricted.”
The Conversation asked Hasan Khatib, an expert in genetics and epigenetics, to explain the growing crisis in the Gaza Strip and what history lessons from earlier famines can teach us about the short- and long-term consequences of starvation, malnutrition and food insecurity.