Complaint
This article set out to explain the basis on which famine is declared, using the UN鈥檚 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), with reference to the situations in Gaza and Sudan.聽 A reader complained that, in its original form, it omitted relevant information about the role of Israeli actions in relation to the situation in Gaza and the criticism those actions had attracted.聽 The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the 成人快手鈥檚 editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
As noted by the complainant, the following information had been added to the article before the complaint reached the ECU:
The UN said Gaza had the 鈥渉ighest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country鈥.
Its most senior human rights official, Volker T眉rk, told the 成人快手 that Israel bore significant blame for the crisis in Gaza, and there was a 鈥減lausible鈥 case that it was using starvation as a weapon of war. Israel has vehemently denied this.
Oxfam has accused Israel of 鈥渄eliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip鈥.
It warns that people living in Gaza 鈥渨ill suffer mass death from disease and starvation far beyond the current 31,000 Palestinian war casualties鈥, 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.
The ECU considered this had the effect of countering any impression that the prospect of famine was merely an incidental consequence of the conflict, and was sufficient to ensure readers understand the criticisms made of Israel regarding its part in food insecurity in Gaza.聽 However, the 成人快手鈥檚 editorial guidelines on accuracy require that deficiencies in online items should be acknowledged as well as corrected, and that we should be transparent about any changes made for that purpose.聽 This would normally be done by adding an explanatory note to the item 鈥 and, as there was no such note in this instance, the complaint was upheld on that basis.
Upheld