[Music]
Live from London, this is BBC News. I'm
Martin Croxell. We begin this hour with
breaking news. The United Nations backed
Global Hunger Monitor, the IPC, has just
confirmed there is famine in Gaza City
for the first time. The IPC, which
doesn't officially declare famine, said
last month that the worst case scenario
of famine was playing out in Gaza. With
us is our diplomatic correspondent
Caroline Holley. Caroline, we've only
just had this report. It's been
embargoed until now. Tell us about the
key findings.
>> The key finding is that they are
confirming that conditions of famine
exist in Gaza governorate that is Gaza
city. They are also uh projecting that
those conditions will spread south to
the towns of Hanunas and Darl Bbala uh
in the next few weeks. Um now famine is
uh classified in a very particular way.
Uh they categorize it as an extreme
deprivation of food. Uh where you will
see starvation, death, destitution and
critical levels of acute malnutrition.
Um it's where 20% of households face an
extreme lack of food. 30% of people
suffer uh acute malnutrition and two
adults or four children per 10,000
people are dying every day of starvation
or the interplay of malnutrition and
disease. So that's the categorization
and they are saying the IPC that for the
first time they are confirming that
there is a famine uh in the Middle East.
uh they've declared famines before or or
or confirmed that famine conditions are
taking place in Somalia in the past and
Sudan, but this is the first time uh in
the Middle East itself. of