UN-Backed Experts Declare Famine in and Around Gaza City
- The Guardian
- 13 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By Jason Burke and Malak A. Tantesh
Aug. 22, 2025
IPC says famine is ‘entirely man-made’ and immediate response is needed or avoidable deaths will soar
An “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area amid deteriorating conditions that threaten an exponential increase in deaths across the devastated territory, UN-backed experts have declared.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognised organisation that classifies the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition, found that three key thresholds for famine had been met, signalling a major escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Only four famines have been declared by the IPC since it was established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year.
“This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report says. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Any further delay – even by days – will result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality.
“If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health, nutrition and [sanitation and water] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.”
The IPC warned in July that a “famine scenario” was unfolding in parts of Gaza but until now it had stopped short of making a formal declaration, citing a lack of hard data.
In addition to a famine in and around Gaza City, the biggest built-up area of the territory and home to between 500,000 and 800,000 people, the report declares that the towns of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in the centre and south of Gaza are likely to experience famine “in coming weeks”.
The experts say the data is insufficient to declare a famine in the north of the territory, though aid officials say the conditions there are thought to be the most severe and have called for urgent steps to allow for a full humanitarian assessment.
Ibtisam Saleh, 50, who lives in Gaza City, said she and her 29-year-old son had been eating one meal a day for weeks, and many times they had nothing at all. “I cook only lentils, nothing else is available to us,” she told the Guardian. “Yesterday a donor gave us a small bag of rice. As for food kitchens, I cannot eat their food, it makes my stomach hurt if I taste it. And I do not have the strength to stand in line waiting to get my share.”
In order to declare a famine, strict criteria must be met: at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and two people for every 10,000 die each day due to “outright starvation”.
The declaration of famine in Gaza will increase pressure on Israel to ease the tight restrictions it has maintained on supplies since the beginning of the 22-month-old conflict.
David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, condemned the famine as a “moral outrage”. “The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable,” he said in a statement. “The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe.”
Amjad Shawa, the director of the Gaza NGOs Network, who is based in Gaza City, said: “This is the worst, the most critical stage in the entire history of Gaza, not just in this war. We are in a very complicated situation. We feel very sick and very tired. We must get food otherwise we cannot imagine what will happen.”
Israel rejected the findings the report, claiming there was no famine in Gaza and that the findings were based on “Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said Israeli forces will launch a massive new assault on Gaza City within weeks. Aid officials said any further offensives in Gaza would have catastrophic consequences for the population.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel-backed organisation that was supposed to replace aid groups that previously distributed food to much of the population in Gaza, is failing to distribute sufficient food.
The UN and other organisations face massive logistical obstacles including widespread looting due to an almost total breakdown of the rule of law, ongoing Israeli combat operations, Israel’s administrative restrictions and bureaucracy and damaged infrastructure within Gaza.
Riham Kraiem, 35, who is living in a tent in Gaza City, said her eldest son, 13, had travelled to the aid distribution areas in the north of Gaza, risking his life in largely fruitless efforts to bring food for the family of 10. “My children’s health … is now very poor,” she said. “There’s nothing nutritious for them to eat. I can’t provide proper food to support their bodies. My four-year-old daughter’s condition is deteriorating, she is suffering from malnutrition and is sick because of it.
“I have no food supplies left. We left some behind in our home when we fled and the house was destroyed. Yesterday my son went again to look for aid and got one kilogram of pasta and a can of tomato sauce. He didn’t get it from the aid distribution, a young man there gave it to him. He came back feeling like he was flying from happiness.”
The IPC report expresses grave concern at the continued and large-scale killing of civilians while trying to access food deliveries and the inadequate planning, implementation and monitoring of the privatised food distributions conducted by the GHF.
It calls for “urgent, comprehensive and sustained action to end the swiftly deteriorating and ever-expanding humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip”.
According to figures from Gaza’s health ministry, verified by the World Health Organization, deaths from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza have risen sharply. In the 22 months after the 7 October attacks by Hamas, 89 deaths were attributed to malnutrition or starvation, mostly children under 18. In the first 20 days of August there were 133 deaths, including 25 under-18s, the ministry said on Wednesday.
Israel disputes the hunger fatality figures given by the health ministry of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, arguing that the deaths were due to other medical causes.
Israeli officials said more than 220 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings on Thursday.
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