Starvation in Gaza is a huge issue. In
fact, you could argue that after was it
almost two years of war after the
October the 7th massacre. It is the
images of starvation and famine in Gaza
that have really galvanized public
opinion in countries like Britain,
France, Canada, Australia that are all
about to recognize a Palestinian state.
It has galvanized public opinion very
much against the government of Prime
Minister Netanyahu. It has caused you
know huge problems domestically also
here in the United States not quite to
the same extent but it also raises the
big question whether famine and
starvation man-made famine and
starvation have become weapons of war is
this what is now happening is this where
we have got to when it comes to the
state of geopolitics how depressing a
thought is that I'm afraid is the
reality not just in Gaza but also in
Sudan and other places. And no one knows
more about this than Alex Dval,
executive director of the World Peace
Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy at Tufts University and
the author of Mass Starvation: The
History and Future of Famine. It's not a
cheerful subject, but it's a vital one.
Alex Dval, welcome to the show.
>> It's good to be with you.
So, tell me about give us some numbers
that outline the facts here, the extent
of the issue.
So if we look over the hundred years up
to about the 1980s,
every decade about 10 million people
died every year in great famines caused
by a variety of factors um including
some by the weather, some by colonial
powers, some by wars. Communist famines
were possibly the worst. And then what
we saw over the period from the sort of
1980s until about 10 years ago was these
famines were basically being consigned
to history. We could say with confidence
that famine was a problem that actually
had been solved by a combination of
different factors including much better
humanitarian programs, bigger, more
professional, growing incomes around the
world, abolition of communism, etc.,
etc. But in the last 10 years, we've
seen something of a comeback. So a
number of countries, particularly in
Africa, but also in the Middle East,
Yemen, in Syria, also in Myanmar, we saw
starvation making a comeback. And in
every case, it was political military
decision. And we're not back to where we
were in the middle part of the last
century, but the trend lines are are are
quite alarming. Um there's a thing
called the famine review committee which
is convened when the UN its data systems
indicate that a food crisis may be
approaching famine. And um in 10 years
ago they only met very very
infrequently. Now they're meeting every
couple of months.
>> What is the criteria of a famine?
>> So there are a couple of ways of of
defining it. So a historian of famine
such as myself, we would look at the
total number of people who have died
because of hunger and disease because
the largest number who actually die in
these famines is not direct hunger. It's
the disease that goes that the prays on
the the malnourished bodies of of of of
children in particular. But the United
Nations, a group of UN agencies and
voluntary agencies got together about 20
years ago and said we need a a
standardized format. We we can't wait
until after famines and said to say
10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 people have
died. We need a sort of intime
uh measurement. So they developed
something called the integrated food
security phase classification which is a
a cumbersome process as cumbersome as
its name called the IPC.
>> Mhm.
>> And and that measures acute food
insecurity which is what people are
eating and what they're doing to eat it.
Are they begging? Are they selling
essential possessions? Are they eating
every day? Etc., etc. It measures child
malnutrition. How many children are uh
suffering from acute malnutrition, not
the sort of severe long-term
malnutrition that that sadly is still a
feature in many countries, but the the
wasting that comes with just not
consuming enough food or getting very
sick. And then what are the death rates
or what are what is the trajectory of
death rates? because as I said we don't
want to wait till after the fact. So
they have these thresholds and they have
a fivephase scale from normal through
stressed, crisis, emergency and the
worst is famine
>> and and is there a calorie count here
that one can point to? I mean you you
take in a certain amount of calories if
it's less than that then famine will
arise. Is it as simple as that? Now they
don't count calories as such because
that's very very difficult to do. But
implicitly there is a a combination of a
calorie count and a sort of health
assessment because probably the most
deadly thing that happens in famine is
when you have unlivable conditions. So
not just lack of food but also the
collapse in sanitation in housing,
people in overcrowded conditions with
sewage running in the street, no clean
water, collapse in health services.
>> So that's a breeding ground for for for
disease and and and so the combination
of hunger and disease is this
particularly sort of lethal, you know,
whirlpool of of of of calamity that
kills um in large numbers. and you get
to a particular p phase where it sort of
generates its own momentum. The society
gets sucked, you know, in into this
vortex and and then you get an
escalating a sort of um exponential
increase in in misery and death.
I mean, I've talked to many doctors
working in Gaza at the moment and and
they they keep telling me the same story
that those children, especially
children, but also adults that have been
uh injured in the war that need uh
surgery after trauma, their ability to
recover has been massively impaired by
their malnutrition or by their
starvation. So let me ask you very
clearly as an expert, do you think
according to your calculations that
famine is now happening in Gaza? I I
have absolutely no doubt about it. Um it
last week there were two authoritative
assessments. A lot one of them got a lot
of coverage which was the UN's IPC and
Israel pushed back on this very hard
calling it a blood liel saying they'd
fiddle the statistics and various things
which are not none of which are true.
you you you look at it very closely.
They're a very cautious conservative
group. They said it's famine. Many
people said they should have said it was
famine earlier. And there was another
one a second opinion which came from the
United States. They have their own
parallel system called the famine early
warning system network. It's a
governmentalbased system and they came
with the same decision. Now that didn't
get any publicity at all and I think
both Israel and the US administration
want to hush that up rather because it
does confirm what the UN is saying and
it does refute the attempts by by Israel
to cast doubt on on on their findings.
>> It's interesting that that part of it
was hushed up because it does run
counter to the administration's
wholehearted support of Prime Minister
Netanyahu. And just to be clear, this is
a manmade famine.
Absolutely. And and as I was saying
earlier, you know, all the famines in
recent years are are man-made, gendered
language deliberate. We haven't had any
women made famines. But the partic what
makes Gaza particularly
um significant and terrible is is two
things. First of all, until two years
ago, it was a a sort of middle income
enclave territory. It wasn't a
desperately poor place where people were
already hungry and starving. And
secondly, if we turn to a place like
Sudan, which actually has the worst
famine, the biggest numbers, the worst
suffering,
>> even if the waring parties in Sudan, the
two generals were to agree to a
ceasefire and to humanitarian access
today, it would take months for the UN
and and voluntary agencies to get their
apparatus, their funding, their staff,
etc., etc., in place in Israel. It could
be done in a matter of a day or two.
They're all on standby, an hour's drive
from where this starvation is happening,
just waiting for Israel to say, "Yes,
you can go." And Israel is not doing
that.
>> It's extraordinary. Uh and it's
appalling. Tell me to I mean even if
they did allow the trucks in and people
were able to eat you know a normal diet
again what are the lasting effects of a
famine you know especially on young kids
that are that are growing that are
developing.
>> Well the first thing to say is that
actually we have a this famine has
generated a momentum. So you have
thousands probably tens of thousands of
kids who need to be in hospital. They
they're so far gone they cannot eat
regular food. and and the most immediate
need is for stepped up intensive care in
hospitals. And sadly, tragically, indeed
criminally, in my view, Israel is now
mounting an offensive that among other
things is going to close most of the
remaining hospitals in Gaza. And that is
a sentence of death to many of these
children. But as you were saying, a a
child who suffers this malnutrition in
the first thousand days of life or in
utero unborn children for them this is a
life sentence. They will never achieve
the same physical, cognitive or or or
indeed emotional capabilities as a
healthy child. We know this from studies
of famine in in Holland in World War II,
from other places. Um, malnutrition at
this scale sentences a whole generation
to underachievement and and lifelong
trauma.
Of course, the Israelis say adamantly
every time that there is no starvation
or famine in Gaza, that actually, you
know, it's all because of Hamas. Hamas
are growing fat on the the aid that is
coming in. They're they're hoarding it.
They're flogging it on the black market.
And actually the situation is not nearly
as bad as you know people the
Palestinian Authority or indeed others
of the UN make out. Again your response
to that Israeli assertion.
>> Well Hamas is guilty of many crimes and
one of those crimes is is starving the
hostages who who who are also in in
desperate state and and and that is you
know should be stopped immediately.
Hamas has the resources to feed those um
those hostages. But Hamas is not guilty
of the crime of this famine. There have
been US investigations uh over the last
year that have found that Hamas is not
responsible at scale for diverting
stealing food. And when the New York
Times spoke to senior Israeli military
officials, they agreed that was the
case. And indeed, if Israel were
concerned about that, it would have
allowed the UN, which delivers to the
people in a monitored manner to operate,
not the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,
its own um private uh operation, which
is like feeding time at the zoo. And and
there's a lot of evidence that that
criminal cartels, maybe in Hamas, too,
are sending young men to grab that food.
It's not the food handed out by Israel's
own favored contractor is not going to
the poorest. Most likely it is going to
to to hoarders and indeed to to to
Hamas. The Israeli story just does not
add up.
And just a final question, whether it's
in Gaza or in Sudan, which as you say
has the worst example of famine at the
moment, or indeed elsewhere, if famine
is man-made, if if if starvation is a
weapon of war, is its purpose to kill or
is its purpose to weaken?
>> Its purpose is both those things, but
also it is to destroy a society. So the
most enduring and the most in some ways
most terrifying impact of of society of
famine is the way that it tears apart
those social bonds. It turns people
against each other. It frankly it
dehumanizes it makes people behave like
behave like animals in this desperate
search to survive. And that I think that
social injury is something that we have
really to bear in the forefront of our
minds when we look at what is happening
today.
Alex Dval, fascinating although rather
depressing. He's the author of mass
starvation, the history and future of
famine.