Famine officially declared in the Gaza Strip

After nearly two years of conflict that have been defined by the blockage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, famine has been officially declared in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, the global body responsible for measuring hunger crises. “As of 15 August 2025, Famine (IPC Phase 5)—with reasonable evidence—is confirmed in Gaza Governorate,” said the IPC report, released on Friday. “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.” Those facing “emergency,” conditions, or IPC Phase 4 is expected to rise to 1.14 million people out of the roughly 2.1 million people in Gaza. According to the report, at least 132,000 children under 5 years old are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition through June 2026, which is double IPC’s estimates from May. Of this, it described 41,000 cases as severe and “at heightened risk of death.” The report also said that “non-trauma mortality” is “likely underreported due to collapsed monitoring systems.” IPC is a network of 21 organizations, including the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Oxfam. Under IPC criteria, a famine can be formally declared when three thresholds are met: at least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, at least 30% of children are acutely malnourished, and two or more people per 10,000 die each day from hunger or hunger-related disease. If monitors find evidence of famine, they then “activate” the IPC’s Famine Review Committee or FRC, an expert council led by up to six people that then meets and can determine whether or not they can officially declare a famine. “This is the fifth time the Famine Review Committee (FRC) has been called to review an analysis on the acute food security and nutrition situation in the Gaza Strip,” the report said. “Never before has the FRC had to return so many times to the same crisis; a stark reflection of how suffering has not only persisted but intensified and spread until famine has begun to emerge.” “IPC always errs on the side of caution, empirically speaking,” Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, told Devex in May. “So we know already that it is significantly worse than IPC is able to measure.” There is no automatic response when a famine is formally declared. In principle, the designation is meant to galvanize political will and unlock stronger interventions. But in Gaza, where United Nations agencies, NGOs, and much of the international community have long called for unrestricted aid access, the obstacle has not been resources but access and distribution. For most of the nearly two-year conflict, Israeli restrictions have kept aid from reaching Gaza. In late May, the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, began food distributions at designated sites, but these quickly turned deadly. By the end of July, at least 1,373 Palestinians — most killed by Israeli forces — had died while attempting to collect food, according to the U.N. human rights office. The IPC report also noted that in July “80 percent of households reported facing safety risks while seeking food.” “As we have repeatedly warned, the signs were unmistakable: children with wasted bodies, too weak to cry or eat; babies dying from hunger and preventable disease; parents arriving at clinics with nothing left to feed their children,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “There is no time to lose. Without an immediate ceasefire and full humanitarian access, famine will spread, and more children will die.” Beyond restrictions on aid, Gaza’s own food production has been decimated. Agricultural land and infrastructure have been heavily damaged during the conflict, while a sweeping ban on fishing has cut off one of the territory’s main protein sources, the IPC report underscored. These compounded losses have left people with virtually no way to access food. This marks the fifth time famine has been declared in the world in the past 15 years. The last famine declaration was last year, in Sudan’s conflict-affected North Darfur region. This is also the first time in IPC’s history that there have been official famine declarations in two consecutive years.