Middle East war risks pushing 45 million more people into acute hunger

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The Middle East war could cause the worst disruption to lifesaving humanitarian work since COVID, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday, as the UN chief again demanded an end to the widening conflict.

“The Secretary-General asserts once more that the war in the Middle East must stop,” said António Guterres in a statement issued by the UN Spokesperson’s Office in New York. 

He added that all Security Council resolutions regarding the end of Middle East conflicts must be implemented, including resolution 2817, which demanded an end to Iran’s attacks on neighbouring States. 

Return to COVID-era disruption

“Beyond the immediate fallout in Lebanon, the conflict has also caused major knock-on effects on global humanitarian operations; we are really feeling the pain on this,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters in Geneva. “Our supply chains may really be on the brink of the most severe disruption since COVID and the Ukraine war back in 2022.”

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Mr. Skau said that relief operations are suffering from longer shipping times and an increase in costs as the escalating violence in the Middle East continues into its third week, sparked by Israeli and US strikes on Iran and retaliatory attacks by Tehran and allied groups.

Running costs spike

Amid ongoing hostilities – including Iranian counterstrikes against Gulf states and Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon – WFP’s shipping costs “are up 18 per cent so far and we have thousands of trucks on the roads every day,” Mr. Skau explained. “These are now running on much more expensive fuel, due to the oil prices.” 

He deplored the impact of higher costs which “mean that we can buy less food or provide less cash to beneficiaries”.

The agency has been forced to cut food rations for people in famine conditions in Sudan and is only able to support one in four acutely malnourished children in Afghanistan – currently the world’s worst malnutrition crisis.

Another major concern is related to the disruption of global fertilizer markets “just as sub-Saharan Africa heads into a planting season”, Mr. Skau said. 

A quarter of the world’s fertilizer supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz, “which is now at a virtual standstill”, he explained. 

Mr. Skau stressed that the spike in global food and fuel costs “could leave millions of families priced out of staple foods, particularly in import-dependent countries, like sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.” 

“If the Middle East conflict continues through June, an additional 45 million people could be pushed into acute hunger by price rises,” he warned. 

“This would take global hunger levels to an all-time record and it’s a terrible, terrible prospect.”

Gulf strikes impact

Meanwhile the humanitarian effects of air traffic disruption continue to be felt acutely in Lebanon, one of the epicentres of the conflict, the UN’s top aid official in the country, Imran Riza, told reporters in Geneva. 

“In 2024 [during the previous Israel-Lebanon conflict] we were receiving an incredible amount of assistance from the Gulf states, from the Saudis, from Qatar, from the UAE, from Oman, from Bahrain…We were getting a lot from Kuwait, and none of that is happening,” he said. “The air bridge is no longer there.”

Displacement and humanitarian needs across Lebanon have surged as a result of Israeli airstrikes and displacement orders covering ever larger portions of the small Middle Eastern nation’s territory.

Mr. Riza said that 132,700 people are staying in some 622 shelters but the total number of those who’ve had to flee their homes is likely more than one million.

“If you think that the population of Lebanon, citizens as well as refugees…, is close to about five and a half million, [we’re] talking about almost 20 per cent of the people living in Lebanon having been displaced – and it’s going to continue,” he said. 

The evacuation orders apply to southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and parts of Bekaa.

About 70 per cent of the displaced are not in shelters, Mr. Riza said, which creates challenges for humanitarians trying to reach them.

He also explained that because of military operations it has become very difficult to access people refusing to leave their villages. 

He spoke in particular of the elderly, “people who can’t physically move and are very scared to leave”.

“They’re very vulnerable people that are remaining behind – and there are others that want don’t want to risk losing their homes, their villages.”

Forced displacement concerns

Recalling that Israel has extended its warning and displacement orders across southern Lebanon, “adding the region between the Litani and the Zahrani rivers to the broad swathes of Lebanese territory already covered,” UN human rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan warned that these orders “may amount to forced displacement”, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.

He stressed that in many instances, Israeli airstrikes “have destroyed entire residential buildings in dense urban environments, with multiple members of the same family, including women and children, often killed together”. 

Listen to an interview with Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF Lebanon’s Chief of Advocacy and Communication: 

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The OHCHR official added that people displaced by the fighting and living in tents along Beirut’s seafront have been hit by airstrikes, while at least 16 medical staff have been killed in recent days.

“Statements by Israeli officials threatening to impose the same level of destruction on Lebanon as inflicted in Gaza are wholly unacceptable,” Mr. Al-Kheetan insisted.

“Such rhetoric, coupled with the Israeli military’s announcement that it would deploy additional forces and expand its ground incursion, intensify deep fear and anxiety among the Lebanese population,” he said.