Residents of Gaza are facing starvation

https://wsj.com/world/middle-east/hunger-spreads-in-gaza-as-figh…

Residents of the Gaza Strip are facing starvation for the first time in recent history, according to United Nations agencies, as aid deliveries fall short of soaring needs in the enclave, where the food-supply system has collapsed.

The overwhelming majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people don’t have enough food, with residents often skipping meals and sometimes going several days without any, according to the World Food Program, a U.N. agency. The U.N. said it is assessing whether Gaza already meets the formal definition of famine, meaning two out of every 10,000 inhabitants die from hunger a day and around one in three children is acutely malnourished.

Local food production, which before the war accounted for around 10% of Gaza’s needs, has been severely affected by the conflict, largely due to a shortage of water, energy and animal feed, said Maximo Torero, chief economist at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

“Gaza historically had significant problems, but the war is taking the situation to an extreme,” he said.

Currently 85% of Gaza’s population, or 1.9 million people, have been displaced from their homes. Most of them are in southern Gaza, where infectious diseases have started spreading in overcrowded homes and shelters.