After nearly seven months of war, parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “total famine” that is spreading across the territory, making it extremely difficult to deliver aid, the leader of the World Food Program said.
“There’s full-blown famine in the North and it’s spreading to the South,” Cindy McCain, the program’s director, said in an excerpt from a “Meet the Press” interview Friday night.
Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American to lead a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort to say there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks did not constitute a formal statement, a complex bureaucratic process.
She did not explain why famine was not officially declared. But she said her assessment was “based on what we see and what we experience on the ground.”
The hunger crisis is most acute in the northern Gaza Strip, a largely lawless, gang-infested area with little or no control by Israeli forces. More aid has flowed into the affected areas in recent weeks, as Israel faces growing global pressure to improve the dire situation there.
On the diplomatic front, talks resumed in Cairo on Saturday aimed at reaching a ceasefire and a deal to release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian armed group said a delegation of Hamas leaders was heading to the Egyptian capital.
Israel and the negotiating mediators – Egypt, Qatar and the United States – have been awaiting a response from Hamas over the past few days to the latest ceasefire proposal, with Hamas saying it was willing to discuss a proposal approved by Israel. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said U.S. officials were waiting “for a ‘yes'” from Hamas on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said at the McCain Institute in Arizona. “So we’ll see what they do.”
Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said in a text message that the group’s representatives came to Cairo “with great positivity” about the proposed agreement. “If there is no deal, it will be because of Netanyahu alone,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has for weeks vowed that Israeli forces would invade Rafah, where many of Hamas’ remaining troops are believed to be fighting alongside some of its leaders. The plan has sparked widespread criticism, including from the Biden administration, amid concerns about the safety of the more than one million displaced Gazans who have taken refuge there.
As of Saturday, Israel had not sent a delegation to Cairo for indirect talks with Hamas officials, as Israeli officials had done in previous rounds of talks, two Israeli officials said on condition of anonymity.
An Israeli official said an immediate truce was unlikely even if Hamas announced its acceptance of the proposed deal in Cairo. The official added that Hamas’s approval would be followed by intensive negotiations to finalize the details of the ceasefire, and that such negotiations could be protracted and difficult.
Ms. McCain said the ceasefire would help ease the situation in Gaza.
“It was horrific,” she said on “Meet the Press.” “It’s ugly to see and it’s ugly to hear. I very much hope that we can have a ceasefire and start feeding these people at a faster pace, especially in the north.
The first U.S. official to say there was famine in Gaza during the conflict was U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power, who made the remarks during congressional testimony last month.
Ms. McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, was appointed by President Biden in 2021 as the United States ambassador to the United Nations food and agriculture agency and last year became the head of the United Nations agency World Food Program.
A famine is declared by United Nations agencies, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and the governments of the countries where famine occurs. It is unclear which local authority has the authority to do so in Gaza. Claims based on short-term calculations of hunger, malnutrition and mortality are rare. But for aid groups, the famine prioritizes one crisis over other disasters and helps them raise funds to respond.
Gaza is mired in what experts say is a severe man-made hunger crisis. Israeli bombing and restrictions on the territory have made the delivery of aid very difficult. The amount of aid entering Gaza has increased recently, but aid groups say it is far from enough.
Israel maintained a “total siege” of Gaza for the first three weeks of the war, with Defense Minister Yove Galante saying “power, food, water and fuel were not allowed” into the area. Israeli forces also destroyed Gaza’s port, restricted fishing and bombed many farms.
Israel eventually eased the blockade but instituted strict inspection procedures it said were necessary to ensure weapons and other supplies did not fall into the hands of Hamas. Aid groups and foreign diplomats say inspections have created a bottleneck and accuse Israel of arbitrarily denying aid, including water filters, solar lights and medical kits containing scissors, on false grounds.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Walker Türk said in a statement last month that Israel’s aid policy to Gaza could amount to war crimes.
The use of starvation of civilians as a weapon is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute, the Treaties of the International Criminal Court or the Treaties of the International Criminal Court
Israeli and foreign officials told The New York Times last week that they were concerned that the International Criminal Court was preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including possible charges of blocking aid to civilians in Gaza. (They also said they believed courts were considering issuing arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, which could be issued at the same time.)
Israel has previously strongly denied imposing restrictions on aid, accusing the United Nations of failing to adequately distribute aid and accusing Hamas of looting supplies. U.S. and U.N. officials say there is no evidence of this beyond a shipment seized by Hamas earlier this week that is now being recovered.
Regardless of how the problem is resolved, there is no doubt that the lives of many Gazans remain at risk, especially children suffering from diseases that make them particularly vulnerable. According to the local health department, as of April 17, at least 28 children under the age of 12 had died in Gaza hospitals due to malnutrition or related causes, including 12 infants less than one month old. Officials believe there are many more deaths outside hospitals that have not been recorded.
Aid flows have improved in recent weeks, with Israel reopening the Erez crossing on Wednesday, allowing some aid to flow directly into northern Gaza.
Fatma Edaama, a 36-year-old resident of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, said conditions in her community remained difficult. Many items, such as meat, are out of stock or sold at exorbitant prices, she said.
But flour, canned goods and other items have begun to move more freely, Ms. Edama said, and their costs have fallen sharply. “Before there was nothing, people would grind up animal feed,” she said. “Now, we have food.”
Still, foreign officials and aid agencies say more needs to be done.
“This is real, important progress, but more needs to be done,” Blinken told reporters this week after visiting an aid warehouse in Jordan.
