[News] Famine Declared in Gaza Amid Israeli Blockade: What You Need to Know

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  Famine Declared in Gaza Amid Israeli Blockade: What You Need to Know

Editing Team
August 22, 2025
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Gaza (Quds News Network)- Famine has been declared for the first time in 
Gaza City and its surrounding areas, according to the Integrated Food 
Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed global hunger monitor, as 
Israel continues to block aid from entering the war-torn enclave.

The UN-backed scale issued a report on Friday morning in which it said 
that famine was taking place in Gaza City and surrounding areas, in an 
area home to around 500,000 displaced Palestinians.

It has raised its classification for Gaza Governorate to Phase 5, the 
highest level, which is characterised by starvation, destitution and death.

The same classification is projected to be extended to Deir al-Balah in 
central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of September.

While the body had previously warned that famine was imminent across 
Gaza, it had stopped short of making a formal declaration.

Another 1.07 million people – or 54 percent of Gaza’s population – are 
classified as being under Phase 4, or “emergency” conditions, while 
396,000 people (20 percent) are under Phase 3, or “crisis” conditions.

At least 132,000 children under five in Gaza are expected to suffer from 
acute malnutrition through next June, according to the latest IPC 
snapshot on the food security crisis in the territory.

That’s more than double the estimates from the IPC, the international 
system for monitoring world hunger and food security, in May.

This includes more than 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened 
risk of death.

The report said “large segments” of Gaza’s population were consuming 
diets “that fall extremely short in both nutritional quantity and quality”.

“Nutrition supplies for treating and preventing acute malnutrition are 
close to depletion due to entry restrictions, which may force health 
facilities to halt treatment,” it said.

Meanwhile, nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women 
will require urgent nutrition responses, the body said.

It declares famine if three criteria are met: at least 20 percent of 
households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 percent of children 
are suffering acute malnutrition, and two out of every 10,000 are dying 
each day due to “outright starvation”.

“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 IPC briefing said.

*Key Drivers of Famine in Gaza*

The IPC report has identified four key drivers of the famine in Gaza.

These include the escalating *Israeli assault*, which has killed more 
than 62,000 people and injured 155,000, and the *forced displacement*, 
which has seen nearly 800,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced since 
mid-March.

The report said 1.9 million people – or 90 percent of the population – 
have been displaced multiple times since the start of the war, leaving 
most families living in unsafe, overcrowded conditions and others 
sleeping in the open.

*Restricted access* was another key factor, the report said, with access 
to both humanitarian and commercial supplies of food and other essential 
goods “critically restricted” since mid-March.

The report said a so-called “tactical pause” announced on July 27 had 
“failed to improve conditions as attacks continued throughout the Strip, 
including airstrikes, shelling, and shooting”.

Finally, the report said Gaza has experienced a “*food system collapse*” 
with more than 98 percent of the cropland in the territory damaged or 
inaccessible, livestock decimated, fishing banned, cash scarce and 
market prices unaffordable.

The UN human rights chief said that the emergence of famine in northern 
Gaza is the “direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government” 
and added that deaths from starvation might amount to a war crime.

“The famine declared today in Gaza Governorate by the Integrated Food 
Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the direct result of actions 
taken by the Israeli government,” Volker Turk said in a statement to 
reporters, referring to the IPC report.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the 
resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing,” 
he added.

The famine in Gaza should “haunt us all” and was entirely preventable 
had the United Nations not been systematically prevented from bringing 
in food, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in the Swiss city of 
Geneva.

“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.”

*“No Famine in Gaza”*

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the findings of the UN-backed 
food security report, claiming there was no famine in Gaza and that the 
findings were based on “Hamas lies”.

*Starving Two Million Palestinians*

At least 112 Palestinian children and infants among 271 people have died 
from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, as Israel continues to block 
aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, from entering the enclave for 
five months, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed on Thursday.

On Monday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that as of July 
2025, more than 320,000 children – the entire population under the age 
of five in Gaza – are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Families are surviving on the bare minimum of basic foods, with almost 
no dietary diversity, WFP said. The agency called for an immediate 
ceasefire to allow large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson of United Nations chief Antonio 
Guterres, also warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “beyond 
catastrophic”.
“Hunger-related deaths continue to be reported, including among 
children,” Dujarric told reporters.
He cited UN agencies as saying that the amounts of food entering Gaza 
are insufficient to meet the needs of the population amid the Israeli 
blockade.
Dujarric stressed that in order to prevent hunger-related deaths, 
“humanitarians must be able to deliver food at scale and consistently 
through all available crossings and routes to reach the population of 
2.1 million people”.
UNICEF also warned that Gaza faces a grave risk of famine, with one in 
three people going days without food.

Over 100 humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, 
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and Oxfam, said “mass starvation” is 
spreading across Gaza, with their colleagues in the enclave wasting away 
from hunger.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Gaza City has been the area 
“worst-hit” by malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, with nearly one in five 
children under five there now acutely malnourished.

The WFP warned that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are “on the verge 
of catastrophic hunger,” with one in three people in the enclave going 
days without food.

Health officials in Gaza issued a stark warning lately: Hundreds of 
severely emaciated Palestinians are on the verge of death, their bodies 
too weak to resist any longer.

The Director of Al-Shifa Hospital said hospitals are dealing with 
hundreds suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition. “We don’t have 
enough beds or medicine,” he said. “We’re seeing symptoms like memory 
loss, exhaustion, and collapse from extreme hunger.” He added: “We have 
17,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition. This is a generation 
being starved to death.”

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 650,000 children 
under the age of five face an imminent and severe risk of acute 
malnutrition in the coming weeks, out of a total of 1.1 million children 
in the Gaza Strip.

Currently, around 1.25 million people in Gaza are living under 
catastrophic hunger conditions, while 96% of the population is suffering 
from severe levels of food insecurity, including more than one million 
children, according to the Office.

UNRWA said, “The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in Gaza. 
Among them are 1 million children.”

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation 
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said Palestinians in Gaza face 
“an acute risk of famine”.

“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian 
assistance,” he said.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in July, 
two out of three famine thresholds for food consumption have been 
breached across most of Gaza, with acute malnutrition levels in Gaza 
City confirming aid agencies’ repeated warnings.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and 
disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC assessment 
maintained.

“The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza 
Strip.”

“It’s clearly a disaster unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of our 
television screens,” said Ross Smith, UN World Food Programme (WFP) 
Director of Emergencies.

“This is not a warning, this is a call to action. This is unlike 
anything we have seen in this century,” he told journalists in Geneva.

The May IPC analysis on Gaza forecast that the entire population would 
likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of 
September, with 469,500 people projected to likely hit “catastrophic” 
levels.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said: 
“Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. 
So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should 
act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 
2024.”

“Israel is starving Gaza. It’s genocide. It’s a crime against humanity. 
It’s a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and 
repeating it.”

*Is Humanitarian Aid Reaching Gaza?*

On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, 
cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a 
humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, with human rights 
organizations accusing it of using starvation as a weapon of war against 
Palestinians.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing 
international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the 
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scandal-plagued organization 
backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid 
delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced 
themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian 
principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring 
Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing 
limited aid, among other critiques. They have also said the model would 
increase forced displacement in Gaza.

Moreover, mass killings of aid seekers near and at GHF aid sites have 
become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate 
Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are 
targeted by Israeli forces and American mercenaries. Testimonies and 
evidence from US mercenaries working with GHF, as well as from Gaza 
civilians, reveal that aid seekers are being directly and deliberately 
targeted, despite posing no threat.

Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death 
traps” and “slaughterhouses”.

According to the UN human rights office, at least 859 people have been 
killed while seeking food near or at the GHF sites since the GHF began 
operating in late May. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human 
Rights (OHCHR) said: “Most of these killings were committed by the 
Israeli military.”

More than 514 were also killed by Israeli forces along the routes of 
food convoys, OHCHR added.

Human Rights Watch stated that Israel’s killing of aid seekers at GHF 
sites amounts to war crimes.

With starvation across the Strip spreading, international outcry over 
images of emaciated children and increasing reports of hunger-related 
deaths pressured Israel to let more aid into the Gaza, the Israeli 
military announced a “tactical pause” in military activity in some areas 
of Gaza which it claimed would make it easier to send in UN convoys. 
However, attacks and killings have been reported across most of the Strip.

A UN worker said the “last minute” aid windows may not be enough to 
treat malnourished children.

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching 
starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.

Last week, the WFP said it is not getting the necessary volumes of 
humanitarian assistance into Gaza despite Israel claiming it issued new 
measures to enable more supplies to enter the enclave.

“We have not gotten the authorisation, the permission to move in the 
volumes that we’ve requested,” Smith said.

Smith said the disaster unfolding in Gaza is “unlike anything we have 
seen in this century”, adding that it was reminiscent of famines seen in 
Ethiopia and Biafra, Nigeria, in the 20th century.

The Gaza Government Media Office and aid groups confirmed that only few 
aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip since Israel announced on July 27 
that it would allow the entry of aid, an average of just 84 trucks per 
day. This represents just 14% of the estimated 4,800 trucks required to 
meet minimum humanitarian needs.

It added that Gaza requires at least 600 aid and fuel trucks daily to 
provide for the essential needs of its health, public service, and food 
sectors.

The Office noted: “We confirm that there are more than 22,000 
humanitarian aid trucks currently parked at the Gaza Strip crossing 
gates, most of which belong to UN and international organizations and 
various entities.”

*“Engineering Starvation” in Gaza*

Israel has deliberately engineered famine and chaos in Gaza, the Gaza 
Government Media Office said, as most of the aid trucks that entered 
Gaza were looted in a “systematic disorder fostered by the Israeli 
occupation”.

“What is happening in Gaza is a clear and deliberate model of how the 
Israeli occupation is consciously fostering chaos and engineering 
starvation,” the Media Office said, adding that aid is being 
intentionally prevented from reaching warehouses or intended recipients.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security has also accused 
Israel of pursuing a policy of targeting its staff “carrying out their 
duty of securing aid trucks distributed by international organisations, 
preventing them from reaching those in need safely”.

It also accused Israeli forces of sponsoring “networks of thieves and 
thugs to seize control of aid trucks, depriving more than two million 
citizens of safe access and perpetuating famine in the Strip”.

“This is a blatant attempt by the occupation to absolve itself of legal 
responsibility for using starvation as a weapon in times of war,” the 
Ministry said in a statement.

This strategy forces Palestinians to travel long distances for aid, 
putting themselves at great risk, the statement read, adding that this 
has led to the “destruction of some of the aid supplies due to stampede 
and overcrowding”.

“Meanwhile, the occupation directly targets them and commits massacres, 
killing dozens daily near the routes leading to the entry of aid.”

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