Edward Mico Joseph Agustin

Israel on Wednesday called on UN-backed hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) to immediately retract a report which determined that famine was present in parts of Gaza.

Article (news)

Israel demands UN-backed monitor retract Gaza famine report

Agence France-Presse

JERUSALEM -- Israel on Wednesday called on UN-backed hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) to immediately retract a report which determined that famine was present in parts of Gaza.&quot;Israel demands that the IPC will retract immediately its fabricated report and publish a notice,&quot; the director general of Israel&#x27;s foreign ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a press conference.He said Israel would share &quot;evidence&quot; of misconduct in preparing the report with IPC&#x27;s donors if the organization fails to heed &quot;within a short time&quot;.Bar Tal called the IPC a &quot;politicized&quot; institute that is &quot;working for an evil terror organization&quot;, referring to Palestinian militant group Hamas whose 2023 attack on Israel triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming &quot;systematic obstruction&quot; of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.The Rome-based IPC said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City.The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza.Israel has severely restricted aid allowed into Gaza and at times completely cut it off during the war.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the IPC&#x27;s findings as an &quot;outright lie&quot;.He said Israel &quot;does not have a policy of starvation&quot;, citing figures on aid it had allowed into Gaza.COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, has argued that the IPC&#x27;s findings relied on &quot;partial data and unreliable sources&quot;.Jean-Martin Bauer, director of the UN World Food Programme&#x27;s food security analysis, defended the IPC, saying it was the &quot;gold standard&quot; for these kinds of assessments.

Israel on Wednesday called on UN-backed hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) to immediately retract a report which determined that famine was present in parts of Gaza.