The U.N. food agency says “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where an estimated 70% of the population faces catastrophic hunger.
The World Food Programme on March 18 released the latest findings of its Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an international process for estimating the scale of hunger crises. It said virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and around 2,10,000 people in northern Gaza are in Phase 5, the highest, which refers to catastrophic hunger.
It warned that if Israel broadens its offensive to the packed southern city of Rafah, the fighting could drive around half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million into catastrophic hunger. In December, the IPC estimated that a quarter of Gaza’s overall population was starving.
