The United Nations has formally declared a famine in Gaza, warning that more than half a million people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation.
The declaration, issued Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) based in Rome, said the famine currently affects around 500,000 people in Gaza’s northern governorate, including Gaza City, and is expected to spread to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis by the end of September. “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 report stated.
UN officials placed the blame squarely on Israel. “It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher in Geneva. “Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.” UN human rights chief Volker Turk stressed that “it is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare,” adding it could also amount to “wilful killing.” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed these warnings, urging a ceasefire: “We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.”
Israel swiftly rejected the findings, with its foreign ministry dismissing the famine report as “based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests.” COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civil affairs in Palestinian territories, also claimed past IPC assessments were inaccurate.
Despite international alarm, Israel has pressed ahead with plans to launch a large-scale assault on Gaza City. Defence Minister Israel Katz warned, “The gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamas’s murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament.”
On the ground, residents describe unbearable suffering. “It feels like we are in hell. I’m going insane,” said Um Ibrahim Younes, a 43-year-old mother of four whose home in Gaza City has been destroyed. “My body is frail, and so are my children’s — we cannot bear displacement, nor the endless shelling and hunger.”
As aid agencies warn of further collapse, mediators continue to push for a ceasefire and a hostage release deal. But with both famine and war intensifying, the humanitarian cost in Gaza continues to mount.
