Food Insecurity Bulletin - Summer 2024 - Issue No.30

The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) has been issuing the Food Security Bulletin since 2009, using its own resources to investigate the food security sector in Palestine. The Bulletin aims to support decision-makers and institutions working in the field of food security in Palestine, constituting a useful and periodic reference on the latest developments in the sector. It is issued twice a year. The Bulletin is a useful reference for monitoring trends in the sector and comparing conditions across time. The Bulletin is only one of several MAS research priorities, although as a topic, food security has received significant attention in recent years, especially through collaborative research projects with our partners, particularly the World Food Program (WFP) and the FAO.

Considering the ever so increasingly catastrophic conditions with each passing day experienced in the Gaza Strip, we have made the decision to retitle our Bulletin for this year “Food (In)Security Bulletin,” as recognition of the Israeli Occupations’ use of policies of weaponizing starvation in its aggression on the Gaza Strip, as well as Palestine. This special Bulletin is published for the second time since the commencement of aggression, which caused devastation to all vital aspects of life during these nine months (Fall and Winter 2023), leaving behind over 40 thousand martyrs, 97 thousand injured, and forcibly displaced nearly the entire Gazan Population. This is in addition to the direct targeting of all lifelines, such as health facilities, economic and productive activities, housing, and buildings, with approximately 87,000 buildings have been completely destroyed, while 34 hospitals are now out of service. The occupation’s policy of targeting ambulance crews, doctors, and journalists continues. 1Within this context, the Bulletin culminates the recent efforts by MAS to document and monitor the proceedings of the Israeli aggression on Palestine, its various social and economic dimensions, and its analysis, for the assess humanitarian, policy, funding, and institutional needs required to respond to its repercussions effectively. 

The current aggression has surpassed all previous and current attempts to weaken the Palestinian society and its developmental channels. For the first time, the aggression appears as a theatre exposing international power dynamics that allowed Israel to bypass international forums, their resolutions, and laws. During its aggression, the occupation has introduced and utilized a recently developed policy to inflict total destruction that limits any capacity for sustaining human life or restoring it. Initial estimates reveal that the current aggression will likely leave unprecedented impacts, needing years of socioeconomic development to restore a socioeconomic life in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip, a state resembling pre-aggression life – a state that is fundamentally far from being considered either developmental or self-sufficient. In our previous issues, we have framed the state of food insecurity within concepts of weaponizing starvation and domicide, and starvation in international law, while also providing preliminary indicators to this crisis. In light of the catastrophic conditions that the Gaza Strip has been witnessing for more than nine months, this Food Insecurity Bulletin sheds light on the latest humanitarian developments regarding food insecurity among Gazans. The Bulletin clarifies certain points regarding the controversy over the actual occurrence of famine, amid warnings about its eventuality. In light of the continuation of starvation, the people of the Gaza Strip refuse to surrender. Those who were able, returned to agriculture after reclaiming damaged lands or utilizing the roofs of destroyed houses and rubble to confront the famine. This Bulletin highlights some individual and institutional initiatives in this regard. As for the latest developments, MAS devotes a section to organized settler violence sponsored by the occupying state to displace Bedouin communities in Areas C and East Jerusalem under the pretext of war, and the impact of this displacement on the food security of these communities.

The second section in the Bulletin monitors developments in food prices globally and locally, greatly affected by the non-entry of commercial goods or aid. Prices were also affected, in light of trade disturbances in the Red Sea owing to Yemeni forces preventing passing ships and to the Occupying State and targeting them. 

In the third section, the Bulletin reviews the scientific debate - and the latest scholarship – on Israel’s policy of weaponizing starvation, and the systematic destruction of the necessities of life. Firstly, this section illustrates how the war destroyed the vital components of food security in the Gaza Strip, mostly irreversibly. The discussion is enriched by addressing a study on the weaponization of humanitarian support, and double standards in the interpretation of international laws, where a clear crime such as genocide becomes the subject of controversy and study, allowing its justification and unrecognition as a war crime. This section also reviews a study that forecasts the future of food security in Gaza and the region, especially for countries suffering from economic crises, by examining the consequences of the current aggression and expectations of rising fuel and gas prices and their impact on exporting countries. Combined with the high costs of trade, these factors will lead to a decline in achieving SDG No.2 by 2030.