Gaza death toll hits 60,000 as global monitor demands action to avert famine

A worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza and immediate action is needed to end fighting and allow unimpeded aid access, a global hunger monitor warned on Tuesday, saying failure to act now would result in widespread death.

Its alert coincided with a statement from Gaza health authorities saying Israel's military campaign had now killed more than 60,000 Palestinians.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the manmade starvation crisis could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let far more food deliveries in. "Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths," the IPC said.

It added that it would quickly carry out the formal analysis that could allow it to classify Gaza as "in famine".

But it is unclear whether any such announcement would help to remove the main obstacle to food reaching Gaza's 2.1 million people: Israel's refusal to allow more than a trickle of trucks in.

NOT ENOUGH FOOD GETTING INTO GAZA

"We're getting about approximately 50 per cent of what we're requesting into Gaza since these humanitarian pauses started on Sunday," Ross Smith of the World Food Programme told reporters in Geneva by video.

The WFP says almost 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition. Gaza's health ministry says at least 147 people have died of hunger including 88 children, most in the last few weeks.

Images of emaciated children have shocked the world and fuelled international criticism of Israel, prompting it at the weekend to announce daily humanitarian pauses to fighting in three areas of Gaza and new safe corridors for aid convoys.

Yet the supply remains far short of what aid agencies say is the bare minimum required.

The IPC alert said this meant 62,000 metric tonnes of staple food a month, but that according to the Israeli aid coordination agency COGAT, only 19,900 tonnes entered in May and 37,800 in June.

Smith said the WFP lacked the stocks or permissions to reopen the bakeries and community kitchens that had been a lifeline before a total Israeli blockade began in May.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that that the situation in Gaza was "tough" but that there were lies about starvation. He said 5,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the last two months, and that Israel would assist those wanting to conduct airdrops - a delivery method that aid groups say is ineffective and tokenistic.

Israel has consistently said its actions are justified as self-defence. It says Hamas, which ruled Gaza, is to blame for refusing to release hostages and surrender, and for operating in civilian areas, which Hamas denies.

IPC CALLS FOR END TO CATASTROPHIC SUFFERING

The IPC alert said that "immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response.

"This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering."

The IPC partners with governments, international aid groups and UN agencies and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population.

Its famine classification requires at least 20 per cent of people to be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying every day from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The IPC's latest data indicated that formal famine thresholds have already been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.

But David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee aid group, said that "formal famine declarations always lag reality".

"By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people - half of them children under 5 - had already died of hunger," he said in a statement. "By the time famine is declared, it will already be too late."

War has raged in Gaza between Israel and Hamas for 22 months.

After an 11-week Israeli blockade, limited UN-led aid operations resumed on May 19 and a week later the obscure new US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - backed by Israel and the US - began distributing food aid.