'Catastrophic': Residents, aid organizations describe conditions in northern Gaza

According to a December report by the United Nations into food insecurity in Gaza, “At least one in four households (more than half a million people) in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic acute food insecurity conditions (IPC Phase 5 – Catastrophe), characterized by extreme food gaps and collapse of their livelihood.”

The International Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is an international framework used to assess food insecurity and malnutrition. The IPC contains five phases of hunger crisis, ranging from phase 1 (minimal/none) to phase 5 (catastrophe/famine).

The situation is the worst in northern Gaza where “45% of households will be experiencing IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) levels of acute food insecurity and 30% of households will experience IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe) levels of acute food insecurity,” the report said.

“In Gaza at this moment, literally the whole population is in crisis level of hunger or worse. And of those people, about 26%, meaning one-quarter of the population is literally starving. In number terms, we are talking about 577,000 people,” World Food Program’s Chief Economist Arif Husain told ABC News Friday.

“We are seeing a situation where there’s no food at all or very, very little, if any,” Maulid Wafa, senior emergency coordinator for UNICEF in Gaza, told ABC News Friday.