UN: Famine over in Gaza, says 'situation critical'

ROME: A famine declared in Gaza in August is now over thanks to improved access for humanitarian aid, the United Nations said on Friday, but warned the food situation in the Palestinian territory remained dire.
More than 70 per cent of the population are living in makeshift shelters, it said, with hunger exacerbated by winter floods and an increasing risk of hypothermia as temperatures plummet.
Although a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that took effect in October has partially eased restrictions on goods and aid, delivery fluctuates daily and is limited and uneven across the territory, it said.
'No areas are classified in Famine', said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises.
The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification comes four months after it reported that 514,000 people — nearly a quarter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip — were experiencing famine, a finding rejected by Israel. The IPC warned on Friday that the situation in the enclave remained critical.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while famine had been pushed back, the gains were 'perilously' fragile.
'Far more people are able ​to access the food they need to survive', he told reporters on Friday, but he added: 'Needs are growing faster than aid can get in'.
Israel controls all access to the ‌coastal enclave. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, says 600-800 trucks have entered Gaza daily since the start of the truce and that food made up 70 per cent of supplies. Hamas disputes those figures, saying far fewer than 600 trucks a day have made it into Gaza.
COGAT rejected the IPC finding on Friday, accusing it of presenting 'a false depiction of the reality on the ground' because it 'relies on severe gaps in data collection and on sources that do not reflect the full scope of humanitarian assistance'.
Israel's Foreign Ministry ‌said that far more aid was going into Gaza than what was reflected in the report and that ‍food prices there had dropped sharply since July.
Aid agencies have ‌repeatedly said far more aid needs to get into the small, crowded territory and that Israel is blocking needed items from entering. Israel says more than enough food gets ‍in and that the problems are with distribution within Gaza.
For a region ⁠to be classified as in famine at least 20 per cent of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
The IPC said on Friday that more than 100,000 people ⁠in Gaza were experiencing catastrophic conditions, but projected that figure to decline to around 1,900 people by April 2026. It said the entire Gaza Strip was classified in an emergency phase, one step below catastrophic conditions.
The ⁠IPC warned that over the next year nearly 101,000 children across Gaza — aged from 6 months to 5 years — were expected to suffer from acute malnutrition and require treatment, with more than 31,000 severe cases, adding: 'During the ⁠same period, 37,000 pregnant and ‍breastfeeding ‌women will also face acute malnutrition and require treatment'. — Reuters