by Hillel Fendel, former editor of Arutz-7's IsraelNationalNews.com.
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) has released new statistics showing that the famine in Gaza that Israel is widely accused of precipitating has now given way to a new trend: obesity.
According to the new report, malnutrition among children in Gaza is
actually much lower than previously reported – a
rate of 0.5 percent, one of the lowest rates of acute child malnutrition
in the region. This, according to an analysis by The Free
Press of data from the World Bank and the Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN–affiliated hunger-monitoring system.
The data were collected by the Gaza SMART Survey,
conducted by the State of Palestine [sic] Nutrition Cluster, led by UNICEF; 1,335
children under five years old were included in the survey, conducted from May
31 until June 15 of this year.
A year ago, Gaza was officially declared a famine-stricken area, leading
to widespread accusations against Israel. Israel maintained that it was
allowing hundreds of truckloads of food each day into the Gaza Strip, but that
Hamas was commandeering the supplies and selling them to the highest bidders or
giving them to their own people.
The new report raises the question as to whether the original
report was ever correct, or whether it was the results of distorted statistics,
purposefully or otherwise.
The latest report shows that the rate of "wasting" – a
medical term referring to extreme thinness indicating malnutrition – is "low
across all [Gazan] sectors, indicating that acute, widespread malnutrition does
not exist at the population level."
Not only do the
figures show one of the lowest rates of acute childhood malnutrition in the
entire region, researchers also found that only about 12% of children in Gaza
suffer from stunted growth due to poor nutrition - less than half of the
regional average, which stands at 26%.
"To be
honest, I thought the figure [of stunted growth] would be much higher,"
admitted Elena Naumova, Chair of the
Division of Nutrition Data Science
at Tufts University in Boston.
The new UNICEF
report reveals that Gaza is now facing a completely different challenge:
obesity and overweight, which together affect about 4% of children under age
five in Gaza. An astonished senior researcher who previously supervised data
collection teams at the Africa Foundation noted that she had "never
seen" the emergence of obesity in a place that had been declared a
famine-stricken area just a year prior.
Hamas Steals and Diverts Aid
According to a report by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), "Delivering humanitarian assistance during an active armed conflict is extraordinarily complex... [In Gaza], one of the greatest challenges has been Hamas itself. Throughout the war, Israel, the United States, and numerous independent observers have documented instances in which Hamas stole, taxed, diverted, or otherwise exploited humanitarian assistance intended for Palestinian civilians."
Just last month, COGAT – the Israeli Defense Ministry body charged with coordinating Government Activities in the Territories - remaining market distortions inside Gaza are now driven less by shortages than by Hamas's continued influence over commercial distribution mechanisms.
Hamas still
diverts humanitarian aid, according to many Palestinian civilians, Israel, and
numerous reports. The AJC report states: "Israeli intelligence, videos
released during the war, statements from Palestinian Authority officials, and
testimony from aid workers have all pointed to
Hamas's efforts to control humanitarian assistance as a means of financing its
operations and maintaining political authority inside Gaza."