(JNS) The director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry penned a scathing letter to an executive at the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification over the latter’s determination of an ongoing “famine” in Gaza.
Eden Bar Tal wrote to IPC global program manager Jose Lopez of Israel’s “utter denunciation” of the IPC report issued last Friday, calling it “deeply flawed, unprofessional and gravely missing the standards expected from an international body entrusted with such a serious responsibility.”
The letter largely criticizes the IPC’s extrapolation of varied data to draw assumptions that the death toll due to malnutrition had reached famine levels, even as the IPC acknowledges that it doesn’t have the hard figures to show that.
Bar Tal accused the IPC of “reaching a predetermined conclusion in order to support Hamas propaganda and the fake ‘starvation’ campaign,” by using “made-up data,” as well as cherry-picking statistics that supported the conclusion while ignoring or hiding data that might refute it.
Bar Tal stated that the IPC was using some of the same flawed methodologies that led to wildly inaccurate projections of famine by the IPC throughout the war, and that the United Nations-aligned entity continued to exclude Israel from the data collection and analysis process, even as it qualifies as a local government in the matter.
Bar Tal said the IPC report goes beyond miscalculations.
“It crosses a line, leaving the impression that the IPC chose to forego its principles and follow politically-motivated calls to declare famine, even if the official criteria have not been met,” he said.
Israel is calling for the IPC to “fully retract the report and its conclusions” until a review of the IPC’s methodologies and its adherence to established protocols is complete, Bar Tal said.
At a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Dorothy Shea, Washington’s interim UN ambassador, also took aim at the IPC report.
“We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity,” she said. “Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn’t pass the test on either.”
She pointed to Andrew Seal, an author of the IPC report, whose social media posts showing an anti-Israel and pro-Iran bias were uncovered after the report’s release.
“One of the report’s key authors has a lengthy record of bias against Israel, including openly justifying the Houthis’ terrorist attacks on Israeli civilian targets,” Shea said. “This helps explain why the normal standards were changed for this declaration, raising significant questions.”
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