On Tuesday, after weeks of warnings, and growing reports of young children dying from malnutrition and starvation, a famine alert was issued for Gaza.

UN-backed hunger experts announced that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said the latest evidence of widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease indicated famine thresholds had been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip.

The UN’s world Food Programme also warned the disaster unfolding in Gaza was reminiscent of the famine seen in Ethiopia in the 20th century. On today’s In the News podcast, Dr Morgan McMonagle, an Irish trauma and vascular surgeon who has travelled to Gaza twice since the war began, describes how life in the strip has become “worse than hell on earth”.

Video footage and pictures “do not do justice to the destruction” playing out in Gaza, he said. Children are undergoing surgery “for the most horrific injuries from the most sophisticated million dollar war machines,” he added.

“What Gazan people need right now, more than a ceasefire, is food. Food and water. They don’t even need medicine, because medicine is no good without food and water.”

Today, on In The News, an Irish surgeon on the reality of violence and starvation in Gaza.

The Irish Times contacted the Israeli government and Israel Defence Forces requesting that they respond to the points raised by Dr McMonagle in this podcast but they did not reply.

Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Andrew McNair and Declan Conlon. 

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