Oxfam Ireland reacts to IPC findings of famine in Gaza Governate
The Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) report published today has confirmed a famine in Gaza Governorate, which is predicted to expand to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September.
In response to the declaration, Oxfam Ireland CEO Jim Clarken said:
“The IPC’s confirmation of famine in Gaza City is a devastating but tragically predictable milestone in a crisis that has been unfolding in plain sight. Palestinians have warned us for months that famine was imminent. Today’s declaration is not just a humanitarian and political failure - it is a moral one that should have been prevented.
“Famine should have been consigned to the history books. It’s an abomination in the 21st century that people are starving to death
“The international community must act with the urgency this moment demands. Silence and inaction are complicity. We call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the full lifting of the blockade, and the unimpeded delivery of impartial humanitarian aid.
“Famine can be stopped - but only with political will not yet seen in 22 months of these atrocities against Palestinians. This has to be the moment for every government and every citizen to loudly say ‘no more’.
“Ireland understands the aching pain of famine. We know what it means when food is weaponised, when a population is deliberately starved. The echoes of our own history - of colonialism, displacement, and genocide - are chillingly familiar in Gaza today. This is a man-made famine, driven by policy choices and military strategy, not by drought or crop failure.”
— Jim Clarken, CEO of Oxfam Ireland
According to the UN (20 Aug), malnutrition has tripled across the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire collapsed. And in Gaza City, acute malnutrition has now reached 28.5 per cent, meaning more than one in four children in Gaza City is now considered malnourished.
Oxfam’s Food Security and Livelihoods Coordinator, Mahmoud Alsaqqa said:
“This is what our staff and partners have been witnessing for months – people in the Gaza Strip being deliberately starved, relentlessly bombarded and forcefully displaced. All part of Israel’s genocide. Mothers are now too malnourished to nurse their starving babies. People are beingforced to walk miles across treacherous terrain to find food, only to be shot, at militarised distribution centres. Elderly under fire are too weak to flee.
“Oxfam alone has more than $2.5m worth of life-saving aid, including high-calorie food packages – now sitting in warehouses outside Gaza. Israeli authorities have rejected all at a time when it is needed more than ever. Other governments that could have done more to stop Israel, are complicit in enabling genocide and war crimes by their silence, inaction and the continuation of many to supply Israel with arms.”
“Ireland understands the aching pain of famine. We know what it means when food is weaponised, when a population is deliberately starved. The echoes of our own history - of colonialism, displacement, and genocide - are chillingly familiar in Gaza today. This is a man-made famine, driven by policy choices and military strategy, not by drought or crop failure.”
