03.04.2024
Boiling Weeds, Eating Animal Feed: People In Gaza Stave Off Hunger Any Way They Can
Israel’s siege of Gaza has created what aid officials are referring to as “man-made starvation”, with the territory facing the threat of mass deaths from famine in the coming weeks. Children are already dying from hunger. As part of its devastating war strategy against Hamas, Israel has restricted shipments of food and medicine to just a fraction of what Palestinian civilians need to survive. Israeli authorities turn back some aid deliveries at the border because of items they claim to be of dual use, meaning they can be used for civilian but also military purposes, such as for making explosives. Delivering aid by air to Gaza is not possible as Israel destroyed the strip’s international airport two decades ago. People are desperate and starving – aid officials say Gaza has no functioning economy due to the war and years of blockade. Prices have soared, with reports of bags of sugar priced at $20 and nappies at over $50. Every single Gaza resident is at risk of at least crisis-level food insecurity — defined as households having high levels of malnutrition or resorting to “irreversible” coping mechanisms like selling livestock or furniture to afford even an insufficient diet. If the food insecurity crisis continues on its current trajectory, more Palestinians in Gaza will die of hunger. There is also the threat of infectious diseases, which should be easily preventable, attacking the weakened immune systems of hungry people. Credit: AFP
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
