Gaza City officially in famine
A child reacts surrounded by pots as Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, August 21, 2025. PHOTO:REUTERS
Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, a global hunger monitor determined on Friday, an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people – close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza -- are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City – known as Gaza governorate – which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
It was the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.
It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but limited data prevented any precise classification. "It is a famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed," said UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher.
"Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," said the IPC – an initiative involving 21 aid groups, UN agencies and regional organisations funded by the European Union, Germany, Britain and Canada.
Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled 2 million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person.
US President Donald Trump last month said many people there were starving, putting him at odds with the Israeli prime minister, who has repeatedly said there was no starvation.
A spokesperson for the US State Department, when asked about the IPC determination, reiterated accusations that assistance to Gaza has been looted and said Hamas was "systematically promoting a false narrative of deliberate mass starvation to put political pressure on Israel.
The IPC has only registered famines four times previously – in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020 and in Sudan in 2024.