Gaza City is officially facing famine, with the crisis expected to spread across the enclave, according to a UN-backed global hunger monitoring group.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) methodology, famine is affecting 514,000 people in Gaza, or about 25% of the population, and is expected to reach 641,000 by the end of September.
This follows 22 months of war in which Israeli soldiers have targeted and killed desperate Palestinians looking for food, damaged bakeries and infrastructure, and prevented help from entering the besieged Strip.
By the end of next month, famine conditions are expected to extend to the central and southern regions of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis, marking the first time the IPC has documented famine outside of Africa.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza’s famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.
“Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival,”
Guterres said.
“People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing.”
According to the UN head, Israel has "unequivocal obligations" under international law as the occupying power, including the need to ensure that food and medical supplies are made available to the Gaza population.
According to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians, "months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears," but now that the hunger in Gaza City and the surrounding areas has been established, it is "time for political will" to put an end to it.
The starvation has been
"openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war,"
according to UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, who also urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "end the retribution"and allow unfettered access to Gaza through its crossings.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the UN-backed declaration that famine was present in parts of Gaza.
“The IPC report is an outright lie,”
Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
Citing the distribution of humanitarian goods into the Gaza Strip throughout the conflict, he continued,
"Israel does not have a policy of starvation."
In May, the UN handed over all food aid distribution in Gaza to the controversial GHF, which is supported by the US and Israel. More than 2,000 relief workers have already been slain, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Following the UN's declaration of hunger in areas of Gaza, the Palestinian organization Hamas demanded an immediate end to the conflict and the easing of Israel's closure of the region.
The group asked that crossings be opened and urged for "immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege" in an online statement.
The Foreign Ministry of the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, said the IPC report “closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine”.
“It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence in all its forms and dimensions to immediately halt the famine and the aggression against our people,”
it said in a statement on social media.
It also urged the UN Security Council and the international community “to address with utmost seriousness and concern” the contents of the report.
“This signifies that the Israeli occupation is proceeding to destroy all aspects and components of human life in the Gaza Strip and committing the crime of using starvation as a weapon in the war against Palestinian civilians.”
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi emphasized that the international community must move quickly to put pressure on Israel to open the ports and permit unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The IPC's official declaration of famine in the Gaza Strip, which has reached catastrophic levels,
"clearly reflects the dangerous, inhumane, and illegal starvation policies pursued by the Israeli occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,"
Albudaiwi said in a statement that was released on Friday.
What immediate evidence did the IPC use to confirm famine in Gaza City?
Widespread and severe lack of access to food, with hundreds of thousands of people going days without eating, leading to starvation conditions. Rapidly worsening rates of malnutrition, especially among vulnerable groups like children and pregnant or breastfeeding women. In July 2025 alone, over 12,000 children were identified as acutely malnourished, the highest monthly figure ever recorded.
Documented deaths caused by starvation have been reported, consistent with famine conditions.
The IPC uses these thresholds to officially classify famine, indicating that the above criteria must be met simultaneously. The analysis drew from multiple sources, including health and nutrition surveys, food consumption assessments, mortality data, and field reports from humanitarian agencies operating on the ground.