August 22, 2025 – U.N. backed food security experts determined Friday that Gaza City and the surrounding area are officially suffering from famine. Israel has blocked most food and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip since the war began nearly two years ago.
The determination of famine came from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, known as the IPC, a group of international organizations that the United Nations and aid agencies rely on to monitor and classify global hunger crises.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, an agency responsible for managing the entry of aid into Gaza, rejected the IPC’s findings.
“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,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of the agency.
The IPC said at least half a million people in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City and nearby areas, were facing starvation, acute malnutrition and death. It said the rest of Gaza’s population, which numbers 2 million in total, was also struggling with severe hunger, and that famine could spread to other parts of Gaza by the end of September.
What is causing starvation in Gaza?
There have been food shortages in Gaza since Israel restricted aid soon after the war began almost two years ago. The latest crisis escalated in early March, when Israel cut off all food supplies to the enclave, saying without evidence that Hamas was systematically stealing aid.
When Israel partly lifted the blockade in late May, it changed how food was distributed. The new method largely relies on private contractors instead of the United Nations. It requires Palestinians to walk for miles through extremely dangerous areas to reach the distribution sites, making it almost impossible for them to find food safely or cheaply.
Israeli soldiers have shot and killed hundreds of people along those routes, according to the U.N., often turning the daily search for food into a deadly trap. Israel has blamed the food shortages on the U.N., saying the U.N. is welcome to deliver aid to Gaza but has been reluctant to do so.
The IPC said several factors had tipped Gaza’s hunger crisis into famine: the intensifying conflict, strict Israeli restrictions on aid and frequent displacement of people. The cumulative effect “has pushed Gaza into an unprecedented catastrophe,” it said.
How do experts define famine?
The IPC’s analyses allow governments, international and regional organizations, and humanitarian agencies to issue declarations of famine. The group does not make an official declaration on its own.
To conclude that a famine is happening, the IPC had to determine that Gaza meets three conditions:
— At least 1 in 5 households facing an extreme food shortage
— A certain proportion of children acutely malnourished
— At least two adults or four children out of every 10,000 people dying each day, either from outright starvation or a combination of disease and malnutrition
The report said households reporting “very severe hunger” had grown to 36% in the Gaza City area by July, up from just above 10% in May.
The IPC could not obtain a full count of hunger-related deaths in Gaza because the health care system and infrastructure there have been severely damaged. But the group said it had enough evidence to be confident that Gaza governorate had crossed the famine threshold.
Alian criticized the group’s methodology.
“Instead of providing a professional, neutral and responsible assessment, the report adopts a biased approach riddled with severe methodological flaws,” he said in a statement.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the experts who prepared the report of lowering the threshold for one of the three criteria required for a famine determination — the proportion of acutely malnourished children — to 15% from 30%.
The report offered a technical explanation. Experts use two methods for measuring child malnutrition. One uses a child’s height and weight; the other, the circumference of a child’s upper arm. Data for the latter method is easier to obtain in a place like Gaza, with severely damaged health care infrastructure.
For an area to be experiencing famine, at least 30% of children under 5 must be considered acutely malnourished by height and weight measures. Using the arm circumference method, the IPC said, the accepted threshold dropped to 15%.
What changes has Israel made?
Under intense international pressure, Israel has allowed more aid to enter in recent weeks. Israeli officials said this month that roughly 300 trucks of relief supplies and commercial goods were entering Gaza daily.
But U.N. officials said many trucks were still being intercepted by desperate people and gunmen before reaching their destination. Limited routes into the strip and long waits at Israeli checkpoints have also impeded efforts to bring in more aid, they said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times and was written by Ephrat Livni. c.2025 The New York Times Company Reposted by permission. Featured photo courtesy of NYT and Saher Alghorra in Gaza City on Aug. 22, 2025.
