1. The Gaza Strip is experiencing famine conditions, a group of global food-insecurity experts said, the most dire assessment of the enclave’s deepening hunger crisis since the war began. “The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” said an interim report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, an initiative supported by the United Nations and major relief agencies. The job of IPC experts is to assess the risk of famine around the world. The interim report on Gaza released Tuesday doesn’t constitute an official statement of famine—that requires a longer process—but it is the first time the group has described the food crisis there in such terms. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.” (Source: wsj.com)
2. President Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region. During a visit to Britain, Mr. Trump contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza. Trump is under increasing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinians having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organizations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory. (Source: theguardian.com)
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