The top US humanitarian official said Wednesday it is “credible” to assess that famine is already occurring in parts of Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.
Although US officials have been sounding the alarm about the imminent risk of famine in the war-torn strip, USAID Administrator Samantha Power is the first official to publicly agree with an assessment that famine is already taking place.
The assessment is likely to fuel further calls for the administration to put restrictions on its military aid to Israel. The Foreign Assistance Act bars assistance to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
Top Biden administration officials, including President Joe Biden, have told Israeli officials they must do more immediately to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk changes in US policy.
“Israel has made important commitments to significantly increase the supply of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza and has taken some initial actions as well to move on those commitments,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday, “but what matters is results, and sustained results, and this is what we will be looking at very carefully in the days ahead.”
At a congressional hearing Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro asked Power about a HuffPost report on a USAID cable warning that famine was likely already happening, and whether it “is plausible or likely that parts of Gaza, and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine.”
Power cited a mid-March assessment from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), noting that “the methodology that the IPC used is one that we had our experts scrub.”
“It’s one that’s relied upon in other settings and that is their assessment and we believe that assessment is credible,” she said.
“So there’s – famine is already occurring there?” Castro continued.
“That is – yes,” she replied.
An IPC analysis from mid-March stated that the “latest evidence confirms that Famine is imminent in the northern governorates of the Gaza Strip and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024.”
“According to the most likely scenario, both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates are classified in IPC Phase 5 (Famine) with reasonable evidence, with 70 percent (around 210,000 people) of the population in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe),” the analysis found.
“The independent analyses by food insecurity and famine experts released in March determined that people in northern Gaza would face famine between mid-March and May. We are now in mid-April and while there has not been a new assessment, conditions remain dire,” the spokesperson said.
“Our focus across the entire administration has been on surging food and nutritional interventions into Gaza,” they said.
Power noted that “in northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition, prior to October 7, was almost zero. And it is now one in three, one in three kids.”
“Food has not flowed in sufficient quantities to avoid this imminent famine in the south and these conditions that are giving rise already to child deaths in the north,” she said.
