UN Security Council meeting: Protection of civilians in armed conflict

Mr President, Excellencies,

The food security situation in northern Gaza is dire and the latest indications are deeply troubling. 

Already in October, nearly 133,000 people faced catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released on 17 October warned that, under a reasonable worst-case scenario, a risk of famine existed for the whole of the Gaza Strip between November 2024 and April 2025. It also projected the population classified in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe) would nearly triple in the coming months. 

As emphasized by ASG Kehris, there is nothing reasonable in what has unfolded in recent weeks. The conflict has intensified, and so has the damage to objects indispensable to civilian survival.

Last Friday, the independent Famine Review Committee issued an alert following significant developments since the conclusion of the last IPC analysis. The Famine Review Committee has found a strong likelihood that famine is occurring or imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip. Men, women, boys and girls are effectively starving as the conflict rages, with humanitarian organizations blocked from delivering assistance to those in need. 

Excellencies,

Agrifood systems have collapsed in the Gaza Strip. Local food production has been decimated. Recent geospatial analyses indicate that nearly 70% of the cropland, which has contributed up to one-third of daily consumption, has been damaged or destroyed since the escalation in hostilities started last year. Likewise, animal production has been devastated with almost 95 percent of cattle, and more than half of sheep and goat herds, now dead. These animal losses have both removed access to critical and nutritious sources of protein and milk as well as devastated peoples' livelihoods. 

The satellite images from recent geospatial assessments indicate that heavy vehicle tracks, razing, shelling and other conflict-related pressures have damaged large areas of farmland, infrastructure, wells, and other productive infrastructure for agricultural activities in the Gaza Strip. 

Khan Younis has the largest and most impacted cultivated area in terms of surface area, while North Gaza has the highest proportion of damage per governorate. 

It is important to highlight that, prior to 7 October 2023, Gaza was largely self-sufficient in vegetables, eggs, fresh milk, poultry, and fish. Local agriculture also produced much of the red meat and fresh fruits consumed inside Gaza. Domestic production of these fresh, nutritious (but perishable) foods meant that Gazan children nutrition outcomes were similar to those of children in middle-income countries, despite high levels of food insecurity. 

Local agriculture is first and foremost crucial for providing balanced nutrition for the entire population. It is also a source of income and provides a dignified life for those working in the agricultural and food production sector.   

A functioning local agrifood system is crucial to minimize the concerning levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition across the Gaza Strip. The significant levels of damage to agrifood systems are exacerbating the humanitarian and hunger crisis on the ground and increasing the risk of famine. 

Food supply across the entire Gaza Strip has sharply deteriorated while food availability is at an all-time low. 

Excellencies,

When people cannot produce or access food, they will suffer increasingly extreme levels of acute malnutrition. People in Gaza have been experiencing this for more than a year.  

This is the fourth time that the Famine Review Committee has met in one year - a first in the history of the IPC Classification - on the situation in the Gaza Strip.  

We can and must save lives. This is a humanitarian imperative and it is our moral responsibility. People urgently need food, water, medical aid and other essential humanitarian assistance.  By the time Famine has been declared, people are already dying of hunger, with irreversible consequences that can last generations. The window of opportunity to deliver this assistance is now, today, not tomorrow. 

Alongside food assistance, agricultural aid is vitally needed to restore availability of highly nutritious food, prevent the sector's total collapse, preserve remaining agricultural livelihoods, and curb acute hunger and malnutrition. Gaza's farmers, fishers and livestock owners are risking their lives to continue production, but this is becoming impossible due to the restrictions and bans on imports of food production inputs and the substantial damages suffered by production infrastructures. 

FAO is ready to further scale up its efforts to respond to and mitigate famine, and prevent its spread, in the Gaza Strip through additional support for remaining livestock and to enable local food production where possible.  

Today, we renew the call for urgent diplomatic efforts from across the international community to address conflict-induced food insecurity, including famine in the Gaza strip and for Council members to remind all parties to the conflict of their responsibility to protect civilian infrastructure, critical to the delivery of humanitarian aid, and to ensure the proper functioning of agrifood systems and markets in situations of armed conflict, in respect to adhering to obligations under international humanitarian law. 

Immediate and unlimited, safe access to people who are in need is indispensable to save lives and prevent Famine. A ceasefire is urgently needed. 

We cannot forget that peace is a prerequisite for food security, and the right to food is a fundamental human right. 

Thank you.