- UN agencies have yet to make an official declaration because of technical considerations, but ‘that’s famine, we know it, and we don’t need the data,’ says de Waal

- International community has obligations that ‘must be enforced – through sanctions and legal prosecution – to prevent and halt starvation crimes,’ says famine researcher Ingrid de Zwarte

ISTANBUL 

In Gaza, Israel’s deadly siege has made desperation a daily reality for over 2 million Palestinians – forced to scavenge through garbage for scraps of food, pushed to eating animal feed and grass, risking their lives for a bag of flour and getting shot while doing so.

Since October 2023, mass starvation induced by Israel’s crippling blockade on aid has claimed the lives of at least 122 Palestinians, including 83 children, and the crisis is intensifying.

Multiple international organizations, including medical groups and rights monitors, have been raising the alarm, warning that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are facing imminent death as Israel refuses to let in aid convoys waiting right outside Gaza.

But beyond the immediate toll, experts warn that the long-term psychological and societal trauma of Israel’s starvation tactics will haunt generations of Palestinians to come.

“There is ... a multi-generational societal impact. The trauma, sense of degradation and humiliation that accompanies the experience of famine lives on in the memories of people,” Alex de Waal, one of the world’s leading experts on famine, told Anadolu.

He drew a parallel with the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, which left a lingering silence and unhealed pain for over a century.

“I fear that in the case of Gaza, this sense of trauma, degradation, humiliation, dehumanization will mean that this is a wound that … will take generations to heal,” he said.

Palestinian children will carry the burden

The UN warned this week that over 1 million children in Gaza are “bearing the brunt of deepening starvation and malnutrition,” as humanitarian access remains choked off.

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said that in the first half of July, nearly 5,000 of the 56,000 children under the age of 5 screened in central and southern Gaza were acutely malnourished.

Another famine expert Ingrid de Zwarte emphasized the immense physical and long-term developmental toll of hunger on children.

“There is the physical experience of having too little to eat and the resulting physical deterioration: exhaustion and weight loss, reduced bodily functions and immunity, and increased susceptibility to all kinds of illnesses,” she said. “Young children in particular are the most vulnerable.”

De Zwarte pointed to the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, where children born to malnourished mothers suffered for decades.

“They have a higher risk of various conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, psychiatric disorders, and may even die younger,” she explained.

“Acting quickly and effectively helps not only the children and adults currently suffering from hunger, but also the next generation, who will carry the consequences of famine with them for a lifetime.”

De Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, added: “The children of Gaza who are going through this will live with the consequences of this for the rest of their lives.”

Gaza’s suffering will increase ‘exponentially’

Beyond the humanitarian tragedy, famine experts warn of structural collapse.

“A famine means the total breakdown of society – communities falling apart, markets ceasing to function, leading to skyrocketing prices, increases in theft, violence, exploitation, migration, and displacement,” de Zwarte said.

De Waal emphasized that Israel’s ongoing assault has left Gaza teetering on societal ruin.

“The basic infrastructure that sustains life has been destroyed. There's no clean water, no sanitation, no shelter, no fuel for cooking … The social fabric has also disintegrated,” he said.

“As the society in Gaza descends into this state of mass starvation and deprivation … what we may see is the unfolding of an even greater trauma.”

He warned that Gaza now faces the same trajectory as previous famines that triggered wider unrest, citing the intercommunal riots that followed the Bengal Famine of 1943, and the violence witnessed in Sudan and Somalia.

“What we know from studies of famine going back decades is that there comes a point at which society simply cannot sustain itself, and at that point, the suffering doesn’t just increase sort of incrementally, it increases exponentially,” said de Waal.

“And I very much worry that Gaza has reached that point now.”

Specialized aid for children, he stressed, is no longer a choice but a necessity. “Malnourished children can’t just eat dry rations … you can’t just feed pasta to a severely malnourished child, that child needs specialized therapeutic care.”

‘We know it is a famine’

While famine designations by UN agencies are usually based on technical thresholds, de Waal argues the evidence is already overwhelming, even without comprehensive data.

“The specialists on the UN’s Famine Review Committee are profoundly frustrated … They can see with their eyes. They know from their experience what is happening, but are not in a position officially to say, ‘We know it is a famine,’” de Waal said.

Experts who have been in the field for decades know that the most profound symptom of a famine is societal breakdown, he added.

“When we see people scavenging for food in garbage piles, when we see people eating animal food, when we see people hiding food from their neighbors, when we see this crush of starving people trying to get food – that’s famine, we know it. We don’t need the data,” he asserted.

He also explained that famine always “affects a certain proportion of a population.”

“It’s almost unheard of for an entire population to be suffering starvation during a famine. In fact, the threshold used by the UN is 20% – 20% of households suffering acute food insecurity, it’s a catastrophic level,” he said.

In Gaza, “there are people suffering from this across the entirety” of the enclave, he added.

De Zwarte, an assistant professor of economic and environmental history at Wageningen University, stressed that a formal declaration is essential to compel international intervention.

“Yet, issuing such a declaration is severely constrained by the lack of reliable data from Gaza, making it nearly impossible to meet the strict quantitative thresholds required.”

Gaza starvation ‘precisely and minutely controlled’ by Israel

De Waal pointed out that Gaza represents one of the most severe examples of deliberate, weaponized starvation.

“Many of the same techniques of weaponized starvation that we see in Gaza, we’ve seen them in Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar, Syria, Sudan … but what makes Gaza unique is that within an hour’s drive of people in this state of utter desperation, there are international organizations … with the resources, skills, knowledge, networks, and capacity to provide assistance across the board,” he said.

“All it requires is for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say, ‘Every child in Gaza will eat breakfast tomorrow,’ and it can happen.”

He recalled that when Israel feared a polio outbreak last year could affect its own soldiers, it worked with the World Health Organization to vaccinate 95% of children in Gaza in just days.

“Gaza is different because it is so precisely and minutely controlled by the government of Israel, and the government of Israel has to bear that responsibility,” he added.

Gaza’s situation is also distinct in its urban character, de Waal said: “Most cases of famine and starvation take place in a more rural environment … It’s relatively rare to see starvation among an urban population, and especially among a population that has had salaries, that’s middle class.”

‘The obligation is to prevent famine’

De Waal lamented the reactive approach that often characterizes famine response.

In recent years, governments and agencies only say there is famine when it is well underway, when you can count the graves of children, he said.

“The obligation is not to relieve famine – the obligation is to prevent famine. We have had plenty of … authoritative warnings over the last 18 months that this is coming, and nothing, or very little, has been done to stop it.”

“Some things have been done to slow it down, but nothing fundamental has been done to stop this great juggernaut of mass starvation running over the people of Gaza.”

De Zwarte emphasized that political will, backed by decisive action, is essential.

“The international community must uphold its commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 2417, which unequivocally condemns the use of starvation as a method of warfare,” she said.

“These obligations must be enforced – through sanctions and legal prosecution – to prevent and halt starvation crimes.”