The 'Most Intense' Famine Since WWII

This was the most easily foreseen and the most easily averted humanitarian catastrophe of modern times, but no one in a position to avert it did much of anything to help.

Alex de Waal sounds the alarm on the famine in Gaza yet again:

Famine is unfolding in Gaza today. We should not have to wait until we count the graves of children to speak its name.

The Palestinians of Gaza are enduring one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in decades. According to de Waal, “We are about to witness the most intense famine since World War Two.” That doesn’t happen by accident. It is a product of deliberate policy choices. This famine was entirely man-made, and the Israeli government is responsible for creating it. Israel sharply restricted how much food entered Gaza for 16 years before the war, and then imposed a total siege at the war’s start.

No one can pretend that we didn’t know this famine was going to happen. The warning signs were everywhere, and humanitarian relief organizations were telling everyone what was coming if nothing was done to prevent it. This was the most easily foreseen and the most easily averted humanitarian catastrophe of modern times, but no one in a position to avert it did much of anything to help. The U.S. and its allies not only failed to act to stop it, but they were also busy assisting and defending the government responsible for causing it.

De Waal writes:

Epidemiologists in London and Baltimore have generated projections for the likely death toll in Gaza from all causes over the months to August. If epidemics are included, their ‘status quo’ scenario projects a death toll of 48,210 to 193,180, while under the ‘with escalation’ scenario those figures range even higher.

It took several years of widespread malnutrition and disease in Yemen in another man-made hunger crisis to kill a quarter of a million people. It is possible that Gaza’s famine could claim almost as many victims in a single year if things remain as they are, and the death toll will be even higher if the attack on Rafah goes ahead. There could be more than 200,000 Palestinians killed as a result of the war and the siege by the end of summer. That would be almost ten percent of the population wiped out in less than a year.

The chance to avert famine in Gaza has passed, but there is still a chance to limit the destruction that it causes. Even if the war stopped tomorrow and a relief operation began immediately, many innocent people are still going to die from hunger and disease. The question now is whether the world’s leading governments will allow the current famine to grow into a gigantic one. Unfortunately, I fear we already know the answer to that.