Israel will blame Hamas
By Adam Parsons, Middle East correspondent
This is only the fifth time in the past two decades that the IPC system has been used to confirm a famine – and the first outside Africa. It’s not a threshold that is easily passed.
So what will happen? In fact, better to start with what won’t happen. There will be no sympathetic “mea culpa” from the Israeli government.
It will inevitably blame Hamas for starting a war that has led to a shortage of food, say that agencies are refusing to distribute aid, and further claim that Hamas is now stealing a big proportion of the aid that gets into the Gaza Strip.
More fundamentally, there will be those who allege that the United Nations is being played – saying that there is no famine, but rather a shortage of food that exacerbates existing health conditions.
In fact, it is a classic sign of famine that vulnerable people are the first to suffer.
And then the government will probably accuse the world of double standards – shocked by the plight of Gazans but not fighting to get aid to the 20 hostages who are still believed to be alive and in captivity in Gaza.
The Israelis already believe they have only one steadfast supporter left in the world, and that is the United States – the one friend they really couldn’t do without.
So far, there are no signs that America’s support is fading. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has laid the blame for hunger entirely on Hamas.
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