Humans wasted 1 billion meals daily in 2022, U.N. report finds

Convoy carrying Gaza aid departs Cyprus amid hunger concerns in war-torn territory

A three-ship convoy left a port in Cyprus on Saturday with 400 tons of food and other supplies for Gaza as concerns about hunger in the territory soar.

World Central Kitchen said the vessels and a barge were carrying an estimated 300 tons of ready-to-eat items like rice, pasta, flour, legumes, canned vegetables and proteins that were enough to prepare more than 1 million meals. Also on board were dates, which are traditionally eaten to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

Earlier in March, World Central Kitchen, which is led by celebrity chef José Andrés, brought 200 tons of food, water and other aid to the Palestinian territory via an Open Arms ship. That was the first food delivery made by sea since the outbreak of the war.

The United Nations and partners have warned that famine could occur in devastated, largely isolated northern Gaza as early as this month. CBS News previously reported that an estimated 1.7 million people in Gaza have been displaced in the territory, according to the United Nations, with many having no access to food, water, medicine or appropriate shelter.

World Central Kitchen told CBS News that it has sent more than 37 million meals to the territory since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants launched a terror attack in Israel that triggered the war. World Central Kitchen also said it opened more than 60 community kitchens in the territory. The organization has also airdropped meals into the region, and delivered food to families in Lebanon who have been displaced by the conflict.

Cyprus Israel Palestinians — A cargo ship, right, and a ship belonging to the Open Arms aid group, are loaded with 240 tons of canned food destined for Gaza prepare to set sail.

Petros Karadjias / AP

Humanitarian officials say deliveries by sea and air are not enough and that Israel must allow far more aid by road. The top U.N. court has ordered Israel to open more land crossings and take other measures to address the humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, the United States welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian autonomy government, signaling it is accepting the revised Cabinet lineup as a step toward political reform.

The Biden administration has called for “revitalizing” the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in the hope that it can also administer the Gaza Strip once the Israel-Hamas war ends. It is headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who tapped U.S.-educated economist Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister earlier this month.

But both Israel and Hamas — which drove Abbas’ security forces from Gaza in a 2007 takeover — reject the idea of it administering Gaza, and Hamas rejects the formation of the new Palestinian government as illegitimate. The authority also has little popular support or legitimacy among Palestinians because of its security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank.

The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 others hostage.

More than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank or east Jerusalem since Oct. 7, according to local health authorities. Dr. Fawaz Hamad, director of Al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, told local station Awda TV that Israeli forces killed a 13-year-old boy in nearby Qabatiya early Saturday. Israel’s military said the incident was under review.

World Food Programme said famine is imminent in Gaza if aid is not increased exponentially

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A major challenge for anyone administering Gaza will be reconstruction. Nearly six months of war has destroyed critical infrastructure including hospitals, schools and homes as well as roads, sewage systems and the electrical grid.

Airstrikes and Israel’s ground offensive have left 32,705 Palestinians dead, local health authorities said Saturday, with 82 bodies taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours. Gaza’s Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll but has said the majority of those killed have been women and children.

Israel says over one-third of the dead are militants, though it has not provided evidence to support that, and it blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates in residential areas.

The fighting has displaced over 80% of Gaza’s population and pushed hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine, the U.N. and international aid agencies say. Israel’s military said it continued to strike dozens of targets in Gaza, days after the United Nations Security Council issued its first demand for a cease-fire.

Aid also fell on Gaza. The U.S. military during an airdrop on Friday said it had released over 100,000 pounds of aid that day and almost a million pounds overall, part of a multi-country effort.

Israel has said that after the war it will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and partner with Palestinians who are not affiliated with the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. It’s unclear who in Gaza would be willing to take on such a role.

Hamas has warned Palestinians in Gaza against cooperating with Israel to administer the territory, saying anyone who does will be treated as a collaborator, which is understood as a death threat. Hamas calls instead for all Palestinian factions to form a power-sharing government ahead of national elections, which have not taken place in 18 years.

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Hundreds of trucks full of aid at the border as famine is imminent in Gaza

Members of an NBC News team in Rafah saw hundreds of vehicles on the road, as well as some in a parking area and more at a tunnel crossing in Ismailia, roughly four hours and 125 miles from the border crossing. Satellite images from the last week also show trucks on the road and parked near the crossing.

According to Nossair, at the time, roughly 100 to 120 trucks enter Gaza per day — about half the number able to be processed by Israel, and a fraction of prewar levels. (Aid agencies and the U.N. say Gaza needs between 500 and 600 trucks a day carrying both humanitarian aid and commercial goods.)

Unclear restrictions imposed by Israel have resulted in an average of 20 to 25 trucks turned away every day, about a fifth of the number that end up crossing into Gaza, he said.

Supplies taken in wooden crates are rejected outright regardless of what is inside, Nossair said. If pallets of aid don’t fit the exact dimensions approved by the Israeli government, he says, those trucks are also rejected.

The Israeli government agency responsible for allowing aid into Gaza, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, told NBC News that 99% of the aid trucks are approved after being screened.

COGAT has said it places “no limit” on the amount of aid entering Gaza but subjects some items to higher security scrutiny.

“The State of Israel will continue facilitating humanitarian solutions for the Gaza Strip, however, it has no intention to compromise in any way when it comes to its citizens’ security,” the department said in a statement to NBC News.

A line of trucks belonging to the Egyptian Red Crescent. — Egyptian Red Crescent trucks loaded with aid queue outside the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on March 23.Khaled Desouki / AFP – Getty Images

A recent NBC News request for permission to travel to the Kerem Shalom border crossing to report on this story has been refused by Israeli officials. Both Kerem Shalom and Rafah in Egypt are restricted areas that require permission to access.

Israeli officials have also blamed the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) for a failure to distribute aid. According to COGAT, UNRWA has not requested convoys north for six weeks.

A representative for UNRWA did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation.

UNRWA, meanwhile, also accuses Israel of obstructing aid efforts by rejecting convoys and turning away trucks for carrying items such as scissors included in medical kits.

Israeli accusations that at least a dozen UNRWA staffers took part in the Oct 7. Hamas terror attack prompted key donors to pull funding from the group and triggered a raging debate about the limited evidence Israel has produced.

The problem with freezers

Sometimes the issue is not the item itself, but what it is stored in, Nossair said.

For example, he said, Israeli officials have turned back insulin because it is kept in freezers.

COGAT has a list of what it considers “dual-use” items that are subject to stricter scrutiny, which mostly include chemical products, cement, metal and construction items. The list does not include coolers, painkillers, anesthetics or medical equipment, yet Nossair said everything from anesthesia to paracetamol is rejected.

Dual-use items are not under a blanket prohibition, COGAT said.

“They are subjected to security screening, since the Hamas terrorist organization cynically uses these means for the advancement of its terrorist objectives,” COGAT said in a statement when asked why certain items, and thus whole truckloads of aid, were sometimes denied entry and sometimes not.

Distribution of aid within Gaza is also a struggle, particularly in the northern area of the strip, where aid has been inconsistent. The World Food Programme has described convoy journeys to the north as dangerous due to desperate crowds and checkpoint delays that often leave teams open to violence. And even when convoys do make it to the area, they can be denied access by the Israeli military.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Sunday that Israel will no longer approve the agency’s convoys to travel to the northern area of Gaza.

“This is outrageous & makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man made famine,” Lazzarini said in a post on X. “These restrictions must be lifted.”

COGAT responded to Lazzarini on social media, saying Israel facilitated more than 350 trucks of aid to northern Gaza in the last month. It also invoked Israel’s allegations that UNRWA workers had ties to terrorism.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC, released a report earlier this month warning that “famine is imminent,” particularly in northern Gaza, where the first deaths due to malnutrition were reported last month. COGAT wrote in a thread on X that the information used by the IPC was outdated and that aid has significantly improved in recent weeks.

Nevertheless, the World Health Organization warned earlier this month that children were dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease and that Gazans will face long-term health ramifications.

“This compromises the health and well-being of an entire future generation,” the WHO said in a statement following the IPC report.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, warned that famine is looming amid the bombardment of Gaza even after increased efforts to deliver aid.

“Starvation and illness continue ravaging the population,” Tedros said on X. “Immediate, concerted action is needed now.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Arab leaders in Cairo last week, where he said the group of diplomats agreed more needs to be done to ensure the surge of aid from recent weeks is sustained over time and that “Israel needs to do more.”

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Syria reports Israeli airstrikes near Aleppo, world court orders action on Gaza famine

The Syrian army says Israeli airstrikes early Friday near the northern city of Aleppo killed or wounded “a number of” people and caused damage. An opposition war monitor said the strikes killed 42, most of them Syrian troops.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Israeli strikes hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near the Aleppo International Airport, and the nearby town of Safira, home to a sprawling military facility.

The Observatory said 36 Syrian troops and six Hezbollah fighters died, and dozens of people were wounded, calling it the deadliest such attack in years.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes.

Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.

The strikes came less than 24 hours after judges at the International Court of Justice unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.

The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.

“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (…) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.

The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.

In Thursday’s order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.

The judges added that this could be done “by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”. The court ordered Israel to submit a report in a month after the order to detail how it had given effect to the ruling.

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Humans wasted 1 billion meals daily in 2022, U.N. report finds

Humans wasted 1 billion meals daily in 2022, U.N. report finds – CBS News

Watch CBS News

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, humans wasted 19% of all available food in 2022. That’s equivalent to one billion meals per day. Brian Roe, agricultural and environmental economics professor at Ohio State University, joins CBS News to discuss the implications.

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What is famine, when is it declared and why are Gaza and Sudan at risk?

Millions of people in Gaza are on the brink of famine as they struggle to access food.

The United Nations (UN) has also warned that the ongoing conflict in Sudan could trigger the world’s largest hunger crisis.

What is famine and when is it declared?

Famine occurs when a country has such a severe food shortage that its population faces acute malnutrition, starvation, or death.

The status is generally declared by the United Nations (UN), sometimes in conjunction with the country’s government, and often alongside other international aid organisations or humanitarian agencies.

It is decided using a UN scale called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

This ranks a country’s food shortages – or insecurity – against five “phases” of severity, with famine the fifth and worst.

For a famine to be officially declared, three things need to happen in a specific geographical area:

at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food
at least 30% of children suffer acute malnutrition
two adults or four children per 10,000 people die each day “due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease”

Why are Gaza and Sudan at risk of famine?

According to the UN, famine is imminent in northern Gaza, and could occur any time up to May 2024. It follows months of conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.

Half the population – about 1.1m people – are starving, according to the IPC classification. In the worst-case scenario, the entire population of Gaza will be in famine by July 2024.

The UN said Gaza had the “highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country”.

Its most senior human rights official, Volker Türk, told the BBC that Israel bore significant blame for the crisis in Gaza, and there was a “plausible” case that it was using starvation as a weapon of war. Israel has vehemently denied this.

Oxfam has accused Israel of “deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”.

It warns that people living in Gaza “will suffer mass death from disease and starvation far beyond the current 31,000 Palestinian war casualties,” unless Israel changes its approach.

The UN has increased pressure on Israel to fulfil its legal responsibilities to protect Palestinian civilians and allow adequate supplies of humanitarian aid into the region.

Israel insisted it was letting in all the aid offered, and accused agencies of failing to distribute it.

Children who have been displaced by the ongoing civil war in Sudan, in Port Sudan, on 3 January 2024 — Hundreds of thousands of children are already suffering from severe malnutrition in Sudan [Getty Images]

Elsewhere, UN officials warned that the ongoing conflict in Sudan has plunged the country into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”, which could trigger the world’s largest hunger crisis.

According to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), nearly 18 million people in Sudan are facing acute food insecurity as a result of the civil war which broke out in April 2023.

Unicef said it had seen malnutrition among young children “beyond the worst projections”, as well as outbreaks of cholera, measles and malaria.

Which other countries are at risk of famine?

The Humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger said several other countries also have “very concerning levels of hunger”.

These include Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

A woman collects water in Haiti in March 2024 — Millions of Haitians are struggling to find enough food and water [BBC]

In March 2024, the WFP warned that Haiti – which is experiencing a severe political and economic crisis amidst spiralling gang violence – was “on the edge of a devastating hunger crisis”.

About 1.4m people there are categorised as being on the verge of famine, with another three million at the level below. The IPC’s description of Haiti’s food security situation is “alarming”.

What causes famine?

According to the IPC, famine and extreme food crises have multiple causes, which can be man-made, nature-driven, or a combination of both.

Action Against Hunger said conflict remains the “key driver of hunger around the world”.

In Sudan, it blamed the war for insufficient food production and resulting high prices.

It also said the ongoing conflict in Gaza was preventing lifesaving food, fuel and water entering the territory.

The IPC highlighted humanitarian organisations’ “near-complete lack of access” to most of Gaza.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said drought and crop failures caused by extreme weather events as a result of climate change were leading to widespread food shortages, particularly in East Africa.

El Niño – a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the Pacific Ocean – has already impacted food supplies in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

What difference does an official declaration of famine make?

The declaration of famine does not unlock specific funding.

However, it often triggers a large international response from other UN agencies and international governments, who can provide food supplies and emergency funding.

Some humanitarian agencies like the IRC provide malnutrition treatments. Oxfam has worked with partners in Gaza to distribute vouchers and cash for food and hygiene items.

The WFP is working in Sudan to restore infrastructure like roads and schools. It also has mobile response teams that travel to remote areas to deliver food and other assistance.

Many agencies typically start to plan and deliver aid before a famine has been declared in order to avoid the worst effects – usually when a country has been given a phase three classification or above.

Where have famines previously been declared?

The last time famine was officially declared was in South Sudan in 2017.

Nearly 80,000 people faced starvation and another million were on the brink of famine after three years of civil war.

At the time, the UN blamed the effects of war on agriculture. Farmers lost livestock, crop production was severely curtailed, and inflation soared.

Women and children at the Mekele refugee camp in Ethiopia in 1984 — It is thought a million people died of starvation during the 1984 famine in Ethiopia [Getty Images]

Previous famines include southern Somalia in 2011, southern Sudan in 2008, Gode in the Somali region of Ethiopia in 2000, North Korea in 1996, Somalia in 1991-1992 and Ethiopia in 1984-1985.

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland suffered a period of starvation, disease and emigration that became known as the Great Famine.

About one million people are thought to have died when the country’s potato crop – which fed a third of the population – was destroyed by disease. Food exports continued to Great Britain, which ruled the island of Ireland at the time.

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No aid deliveries to northern Gaza despite famine warning

No aid deliveries are getting through to the northern Gaza Strip, despite urgent warnings of famine, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, reported on Monday.

This follows the head of UNRWA’s comments on Sunday saying Israeli authorities informed the UN that they will no longer approve any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza, where Philippe Lazzarini said people are on the verge of famine.

UNRWA said that an average of 157 trucks carrying aid had entered the zone this month up to and including Saturday. It confirmed that Israel has since rejected urgent UNRWA food convoys to enter northern Gaza.

“This remains well below the operational capacity of both border crossings and the target of 500 per day, with challenges at both Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah,” UNRWA said, in reference to crossings in the south of the Gaza Strip into Israel and Egypt respectively.

The agency had submitted requests for aid approval since Thursday, but all of them were denied with no reason given.

It added that managing the crossings had been severely impacted by the killing of several Palestinian policemen in Israeli airstrikes near the crossings in early February.

Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA officials of involvement in the October 7 attacks and halted cooperation with the agency. UNRWA subsequently fired several employees.

Lazzarini said blocking UNRWA aid to the north is “outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine.”

Israel has rejected accusations it is hindering aid deliveries into Gaza, instead accusing aid organizations of not distributing them properly, while the groups say they are lacking proper protection.

Humanitarian aid packages land by the help of parachutes after dropping from a plane as Israeli attacks continue in Gaza City. Ali Hamad/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

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