The IPC Famine Review Committee (FRC) issued an alert on Friday warning that famine is likely imminent in areas of the northern Gaza Strip, while the humanitarian situation throughout the territory is extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating. Meanwhile, a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of committing serious violations of international law in Gaza, many of which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The FRC said immediate action, "within days, not weeks," is required by all actors directly involved in the conflict or with influence over its conduct to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation.
On October 6, 2024, Israel declared the entire northern Gaza Strip a combat zone and ordered all civilians to evacuate. Since then, tens of thousands of people in northern Gaza have been trapped in their homes, unable to leave the combat zone. Since the beginning of October, repeated evacuation orders have been issued for northern Gaza.
North Gaza has been under almost total siege for the past month. An estimated 100,000 people in the North Gaza Governorate are completely cut off from humanitarian aid, with the UN condemning "unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance". In the north, the IDF is effectively exposing an entire population to bombing, siege and the risk of starvation, forcing them to make a choice between mass displacement and being trapped in an active conflict zone.
For nearly a month, all attempts by humanitarian organizations to deliver food to people in the besieged areas of the North Gaza Governorate have been blocked by the Israeli authorities. UN officials say Israeli ground operations have left Palestinians without the basic necessities to survive, forcing them to flee for their lives on multiple occasions and cutting off their escape and supply routes. They say civilians are starving while the world watches.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported earlier this week that some 100,000 people have now been displaced from North Gaza to Gaza City over a four-week period. It is estimated that between 75,000 and 95,000 people remain in North Gaza. According to OCHA, the death toll there over the past month is believed to be in the hundreds, possibly over 1,000, with the Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD) estimating the death toll at around 1,300.
The IPC alert is intended to draw immediate attention to the need for urgent action to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in areas of northern Gaza.
Throughout the Gaza Strip, food supplies have deteriorated significantly. The level of supplies entering the Gaza Strip in October 2024 is lower than the levels permitted in early 2024, a period during which acute food security and acute malnutrition rapidly deteriorated and famine was projected in the northern governorates.
Almost no aid has reached the northern areas for weeks, with unlawful restrictions remaining in place, and many people now facing starvation. Acting UN relief chief Joyce Msuya has repeatedly warned that the entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying.
International humanitarian law (IHL) requires Israel to ensure that the basic needs of the population of Gaza are met. Among other things, it must ensure that Gaza receives sufficient water, food, medical supplies, and other basic essentials to enable the population to survive.
However, since Israel declared a full siege on the Gaza Strip on October 9, the amount of aid entering the enclave has never been sufficient to meet the needs on the ground. For more than a year, Israel has failed to provide or even facilitate the delivery of essential supplies for the survival of some 2.1 million people still living in Gaza.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Israeli policies have resulted in woeful levels of aid reaching those in need. 91 percent of Gazans face acute food insecurity, with 16 percent at catastrophic levels and likely to starve.
Some 1.9 million people - 90 percent of Gaza's total population - have been displaced by Israeli military attacks or Israeli evacuation orders, including people who have been forced to flee more than a dozen times. At least 1 million children are among those uprooted by the war.
The Famine Review Committee calls on all parties directly involved in the conflict or with influence over its conduct to immediately allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries of food, water, medical and nutritional supplies and other essential items into the Gaza Strip for distribution to all populations in need.
It urges, inter alia, an end to the siege in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip and calls on the belligerent parties to cease attacks on health facilities and other essential civilian infrastructure.
“Failure to respond to these calls within the next few days will result in a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation and additional, avoidable, civilian deaths,” the FRC said.
“If no effective action is taken by stakeholders with influence, the scale of this looming catastrophe is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.”
Also on Friday, a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office accused the Israeli Defense Forces of committing gross violations of international law in Gaza, many of which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The detailed analysis of violations covers the six-month period from November 2023 to April 2024 and broadly examines the killing of civilians and breaches of international law, many of which could amount to war crimes.
If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, these violations may constitute crimes against humanity, the report adds. And if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, they may also constitute genocide, the report warns.
The UN Human Rights Office has verified the personal details of those killed in Gaza by air strikes, shelling and other hostilities. Of those killed, it has so far found that nearly 70 percent were children and women, indicating a systematic violation of the basic principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.
"I have repeatedly warned about the risk of atrocity crimes being committed," Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement to coincide with the publication of the report Friday.
"The rules of war, in force now for 160 years, were designed to limit and prevent human suffering in times of armed conflict," he said.
"It seems inconceivable that the parties to the conflict refuse to apply universally accepted and binding norms developed to preserve the very bare minimum of humanity."
While the report examines and documents violations of international law committed by both parties to the conflict, it focuses primarily on the numerous violations resulting from the attacks by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
According to the report, "Civilians, including children, women and men, have borne the brunt of the attacks due to the total siege and the various forms of continued closure and blockade of Gaza by the IDF.
It accuses the Israeli government of failing to ensure and even blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave, of destroying civilian infrastructure, and of repeated mass displacement of the population. The report says this has led to "unprecedented levels of killing, death, injury, hunger, disease, illness, displacement, imprisonment and destruction.
The report expresses concern about the forcible transfer of Palestinians, attacks on so-called "safe zones" and on hospitals "in an apparently systematic fashion". It condemns the killing of medical personnel, humanitarian workers, civilian police and journalists, and the reported use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas.
Gaza health officials report that more than 43,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, the majority women and children, have been killed and more than 102,000 injured since Israel began its war on the Palestinian enclave more than a year ago.
Among the dead are at least 326 aid workers, 241 UN personnel, 1047 health workers and 174 journalists. More than 10,000 people - including thousands of children - are missing and presumed dead.
Since last October, more than 150,000 people, or more than 7 percent of Gaza's population, have been killed, wounded or reported missing in Israel's attacks on Gaza. While the world's influential governments stand idly by, the suffering of the people of Gaza continues in all parts of the territory.
"Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law — namely the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack," said Türk.
"Tragically these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war."
Speaking via video link from Amman, Jordan, Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), told journalists in Geneva on Friday that his office continues to monitor the situation in Gaza "with grave concern".
"Israel's conduct of hostilities has destroyed Gaza civilian infrastructure, its homes, hospitals and schools, its electricity, water and sewage systems," he said.
"Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
"We have been verifying the personal details of those killed in Gaza by strikes, shelling and other conduct of hostilities," he added.
"Of those fatalities, we have so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women, indicating a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality."
Due to a lack of access to the enclave, Sunghay said his sources in Gaza have only been able to verify about 10,000 deaths, including 4,700 children. He said the figures provided by the Ministry of Health were consistent with those of the OHCHR, and "there was no reason to believe that it is any different now."
He explained that verifying 10,000 casualties with details on how they had perished "was already a remarkable achievement under the current dire circumstances."
UN human rights chief Türk said justice must be served for the grave violations of international law that have been committed.
"It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved," he said.
"The violence must stop immediately; the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”
The High Commissioner also called upon UN Member States, in accordance with their obligations under international law, to assess arms sales or transfers and the provision of military, logistical or financial assistance to a party to the conflict, with a view to terminating such assistance if it risks serious violations of international law.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: IPC Famine Review Committee Alert Gaza Strip, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), report, published November 8, 2024
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/ipc-famine-review-committee-alert-gaza-strip-published-8-november-2024
Full text: Six-month update report on the human rights situation in Gaza: 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, released November 8, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/opt/20241106-Gaza-Update-Report-OPT.pdf