UN-backed report confirms famine in parts of Gaza for first time

Famine has been confirmed for the first time in an area of the embattled Gaza Strip, according to the international authority responsible for monitoring food security.

In a report released on Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said it has “reasonable evidence” that famine has been occurring in Gaza Governorate, an administrative region which includes Gaza City, since August 15.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the authority said.

It said a further 70% of the Gaza Strip’s 2 million inhabitants are unable to meet their food needs.

Some 132,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition through June 2026 – double the IPC estimate from May – with 41,000 of them considered particularly vulnerable.

The World Health Organization noted that Friday’s classification marks the first time that famine has been declared in a Middle Eastern country.

Famine expected to spread

The IPC also projected that famine will expand to two other central governorates, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, by the end of September.

Conditions in the governorate further north are possibly even worse, but as the area is relatively inaccessible, it cannot be properly assessed.

Famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: At least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two adults or four children per 10,000 inhabitants die every day from hunger or from a combination of malnutrition and disease.

The area now facing famine covers around 20% of the embattled Gaza Strip, including the territory’s major metropolis Gaza City, which the Israeli military is planning to seize as part of a new offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The offensive, approved on Thursday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, has sparked fears of further suffering for the civilian population.

Before beginning the campaign, Israel plans to relocate the city’s population of around 1 million. However, residents have already reported intense Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity of the city.

UN decries Gaza conditions

Aid organizations have been warning for months about the catastrophic conditions endured by Gaza’s civilian population, who have been lacking basic necessities since Israel imposed a near-total aid blockade on the territory earlier this year.

Last month, Israel partially lifted its blockade, allowing limited amounts of aid to trickle into the Gaza Strip, though aid organizations have said the amount is nowhere near enough to prevent famine.

“Now the nightmare scenario is a reality,” said Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva.

UN Secretary General António Guterres described the conditions in Gaza as “living hell.”

He stressed that the situation is “not a mystery,” but rather “a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself.”

The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has obligations under international law to ensure food and medical supplies, adding: “We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.”

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher also criticized Israel’s conduct, saying: “It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”

“It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war,” he continued.

Israel consistently rejects such statements and accusations, accusing the United Nations in turn of failing to distribute aid supplies available in the Gaza Strip.

Israel rejects report as ‘biased’

The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the IPC’s assessment, writing on X: “There is no famine in Gaza.”

The Israeli authority responsible for affairs in the Palestinian Territories, COGAT, also categorically rejected the report. “Previous reports and assessments by the IPC have repeatedly been proven inaccurate and do not reflect the reality on the ground,” it wrote on X.

COGAT accused the IPC of “deliberately” failing to take into account in the report “data that was provided to its authors in a meeting held prior to its publication,” though it did not specify the exact nature of the data.

Head of COGAT, Ghassan Allian, said: “The IPC report is based on partial and unreliable sources, many of them affiliated with Hamas, and blatantly ignores the facts and the extensive humanitarian efforts led by the State of Israel and its international partners.”

“Instead of providing a professional, neutral, and responsible assessment, the report adopts a biased approach riddled with severe methodological flaws, thereby undermining its credibility and the trust the international community is able to place in it,” he was quoted as saying.

German, UK ministers call for more aid access

However, European ministers criticized Israel for its role in the crisis.

German Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan said the report clearly shows the catastrophic situation in Gaza and called for significantly more aid to reach the embattled territory.

“More and more people – especially children – are starving to death before our eyes. This cannot go on. The famine is entirely man-made,” she said.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy meanwhile described the announcement as “utterly horrifying” and accused the Israeli government of causing a “man-made catastrophe,” in comments reported by the PA news agency.

“The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage,” he said.

Lammy called for a halt to Israel’s military operation in Gaza City, which he said “will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas.”

Four famines around world in last 15 years

The IPC initiative, founded in 2004, includes nearly two dozen UN and aid organizations. It classifies food security according to five levels, with famine at level five being the most severe.

Until now, the entire Gaza Strip was classified as a level four “emergency.”

Four famines have been confirmed by the IPC in the last 15 years: in Somalia in 2011, in South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and most recently in Sudan in 2024.