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Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza
FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO reiterate call for immediate ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to curb deaths from hunger and malnutrition
22/08/2025- ROME/GENEVA/NEW YORK – More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths, according to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released today. Famine conditions are projected to spread from Gaza Governorate to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the coming weeks.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNICEF, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have collectively and consistently highlighted the extreme urgency for an immediate and full-scale humanitarian response given the escalating hunger-related deaths, rapidly worsening levels of acute malnutrition and plummeting levels of food consumption, with hundreds of thousands of people going days without anything to eat.
The agencies reinforced that famine must be stopped at all costs. An immediate ceasefire and end to the conflict is critical to allow unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response that can save lives. The agencies are also gravely concerned about the threat of an intensified military offensive in Gaza City and any escalation in the conflict, as it would have further devastating consequences for civilians where famine conditions already exist. Many people – especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities – may be unable to evacuate.
By the end of September, more than 640 000 people will face Catastrophic levels of food insecurity – classified as IPC Phase 5 – across the Gaza Strip. An additional 1.14 million people in the territory will be in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and a further 396 000 people in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) conditions. Conditions in North Gaza are estimated to be as severe – or worse – than in Gaza City. However, limited data prevented an IPC classification, highlighting the urgent need for access to assess and assist. Rafah was not analyzed given indications that it is largely depopulated.
Classifying famine means that the most extreme category is triggered when three critical thresholds – extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths – have been breached. The latest analysis now affirms on the basis of reasonable evidence that these criteria have been met.
Almost two years of conflict, repeated displacement, and severe restrictions on humanitarian access, compounded by repeated interruptions and impediments to access to food, water, medical aid, support to agriculture, livestock and fisheries and the collapse of health, sanitation, and market systems, have pushed people into starvation.
Access to food in Gaza remains severely constrained. In July, the number of households reporting very severe hunger doubled across the territory compared to May and more than tripled in Gaza City. More than one in three people (39 percent) indicated they were going days at a time without eating, and adults regularly skip meals to feed their children.
Malnutrition among children in Gaza is accelerating at a catastrophic pace. In July alone, more than 12 000 children were identified as acutely malnourished – the highest monthly figure ever recorded and a six-fold increase since the start of the year. Nearly one in four of these children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), the deadliest form with both short and long-term impacts.
Since the last IPC Analysis in May, the number of children expected to be at severe risk of death from malnutrition by the end of June 2026 has tripled from 14 100 to 43 400. Similarly, for pregnant and breastfeeding women, the number of estimated cases has tripled from 17 000 in May to 55 000 women expected to be suffering from perilous levels of malnutrition by mid-2026. The impact is visible: one in five babies are born prematurely or underweight.
The new assessment reports the most severe deterioration since the IPC began analyzing acute food insecurity and acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, and it marks the first time a famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region.
Since July, food and aid supplies entering Gaza increased slightly but remained vastly insufficient, inconsistent and inaccessible compared to the need.
Meanwhile, approximately 98 percent of cropland in the territory is damaged or inaccessible – decimating the agriculture sector and local food production – and nine of ten people have been serially displaced from homes. Cash is critically scarce, aid operations remain severely disrupted, with most UN trucks looted amid growing desperation. Food prices are extremely high and there is not enough fuel and water to cook and medicines and medical supplies.
Gaza’s health system has severely deteriorated, access to safe drinking water and sanitation services has been drastically reduced, while multi-drug resistant infections are surging and levels of morbidity – including diarrhoea, fever, acute respiratory and skin infections – are alarmingly high among children.
To enable lifesaving humanitarian operations, the U.N. agencies emphasized the importance of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to stop the killing, allow for the safe release of hostages and permit unimpeded access for a mass influx of assistance to reach people across Gaza. They stressed the urgent need for greater amounts of food aid, along with dramatically improved delivery, distribution and accessibility, as well as shelter, fuel, cooking gas and food production inputs. They emphasized that it is critical to support the rehabilitation of the health system, maintain and revive essential health services, including primary health care, and ensure sustained delivery of health supplies into and across Gaza. The restoration of commercial flows at scale, market systems, essential services, and local food production is also vital if the worst outcomes of the famine are to be avoided.
“People in Gaza have exhausted every possible means of survival. Hunger and malnutrition are claiming lives every day, and the destruction of cropland, livestock, greenhouses, fishery and food production systems has made the situation even more dire,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “Our priority must now be safe and sustained access for large-scale food assistance. Access to food is not a privilege – it is a basic human right.”
“Famine warnings have been clear for months,” said Cindy McCain, WFP Executive Director. “What’s urgently needed now is a surge of aid, safer conditions, and proven distribution systems to reach those most in need – wherever they are. Full humanitarian access and a ceasefire now are critical to save lives.”
“Famine is now a grim reality for children in Gaza Governorate, and a looming threat in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “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. There is no time to lose. Without an immediate ceasefire and full humanitarian access, famine will spread, and more children will die. Children on the brink of starvation need the special therapeutic feeding that UNICEF provides.”
“A ceasefire is an absolute and moral imperative now,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The world has waited too long, watching tragic and unnecessary deaths mount from this man-made famine. Widespread malnutrition means that even common and usually mild diseases like diarrhoea are becoming fatal, especially for children. The health system, run by hungry and exhausted health workers, cannot cope. Gaza must be urgently supplied with food and medicines to save lives and begin the process of reversing malnutrition. Hospitals must be protected so that they can continue treating patients. Aid blockages must end, and peace must be restored, so that healing can begin.”
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Notes for editors:
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is an innovative 21-partner initiative – made up of UN agencies and international NGOs – for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making. By using the IPC classification and analytical approach, governments, UN Agencies, NGOs, civil society and other relevant actors, work together to determine the severity and magnitude of acute and chronic food insecurity, and acute malnutrition situations in a country, according to internationally-recognized scientific standards. Find out more here.[AB1]
Related links
· IPC Special Snapshot on the Gaza
· Famine Review Committee (FRC) Report
For more information, please contact:
FAO: Peter Mayer, tel: (+39) 06 570 53304.
UNICEF: Joe English, New York, +1 917 893 0692
WFP:
WHO:
WHO operations compromised following attacks on warehouse and facility sheltering staff and families in Deir al Balah, Gaza
21 July 2025 - WHO condemns in the strongest terms the attacks on a building housing WHO staff in Deir al Balah in Gaza, the mistreatment of those sheltering there, and the destruction of its main warehouse.
Following intensified hostilities in Deir al Balah after the latest evacuation order issued by Israeli military, the WHO staff residence was attacked three times today. Staff and their families, including children, were exposed to grave danger and traumatized after airstrikes caused a fire and significant damage. Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint. Two WHO staff and two family members were detained. Three were later released, while one staff member remains in detention. Thirty-two people, including women and children, were collected and evacuated to the WHO office in a high-risk mission, once access became possible. The office itself is close to the evacuation zone and active conflict.
WHO demands continuous protection of its staff and the immediate release of the remaining detained staff member.
The latest evacuation order has affected several WHO premises. As the United Nations’s (UN) lead health agency, WHO’s operational presence in Gaza is now compromised, crippling efforts to sustain a collapsing health system and pushing survival further out of reach for more than two million people.
Most of WHO’s staff housing is now inaccessible. Last night, due to intensified hostilities, 43 staff and their families were already relocated from several staff residences to the WHO office, under darkness and at significant risk.
WHO’s main warehouse located in Deir al Balah is within the evacuation zone, and was damaged yesterday after an attack caused explosions and fire inside - part of a pattern of systematic destruction of health facilities. It was later looted by desperate crowds.
With the main warehouse nonfunctional and the majority of medical supplies in Gaza depleted, WHO is severely constrained in adequately supporting hospitals, emergency medical teams and health partners, already critically short on medicines, fuel, and equipment. WHO urgently calls on Member States to help ensure a sustained and regular flow of medical supplies into Gaza.
The geographical coordinates of all WHO premises, including offices, warehouses, and staff housing, are shared with the relevant parties. These facilities are the backbone of WHO’s operations in Gaza and must always be protected, regardless of evacuation or displacement orders. Any threat to these premises is a threat to the entire humanitarian health response in Gaza.
In line with the UN’s decision, WHO will remain in Deir al Balah, deliver and expand its operations.
With 88% of Gaza now under evacuation orders or within Israeli-militarized zones, there is no safe place to go.
WHO is appalled by the dangerous conditions under which humanitarians and health workers are forced to operate. As the security situation and access continue to deteriorate, red lines are repeatedly crossed, and humanitarian operations pushed into an ever-shrinking space to respond.
WHO calls for the immediate release of the WHO staff member detained today, and the protection of all our staff and its premises. We reiterate our call for the active protection of civilians, health care and its premises and for rapid and unimpeded flow of aid, including food, fuel and health supplies, at scale into and across Gaza. WHO also calls for the unconditional release of hostages.
Life in Gaza is being relentlessly squeezed, and the chance to prevent loss of lives and reverse immense damage to the health system slips further out of reach each day. A ceasefire is not just necessary, it is overdue.
WHO statement on IPC alert: Worst-case scenario for famine unfolding in Gaza
30 July 2025, Jerusalem, Cairo, Geneva - The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip, according to the alert published this week by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). People are foregoing food for days. Others are dying as their undernourished, weakened bodies succumb to disease or organ failure. The health system, normally a source of sustenance and relief, is also starved of essential medical supplies, fuel, and other necessities to function fully. Humanitarian and health workers are also weak from hunger.
Dying of starvation is slow and painful. A starving child, among the most vulnerable, might cry constantly from pain until becoming too weak to even do that. If not urgently treated, a child with acute malnutrition will die.
To stop the dying and reverse this man-made tragedy will take months, if not years.Recovery for a malnourished person takes specialised medical attention, correct therapeutic feeding and supplementation. In some severe cases, consequences are lifelong, from stunted growth and impaired brain development to other lasting health complications.
While the IPC partners, including WHO, will conduct further assessments, the gravity of the situation is clear.
Food, medicines and other aid must be allowed in immediately, at scale, through all possible routes. United Nations partners have such supplies ready and waiting at the border. WHO calls on Israel to urgently facilitate the United Nations and other humanitarian actors by ensuring safe, rapid and unhindered access to delivery and distribution of aid. As ever, our call is to end the suffering. Our colleague who remains in detention must be released. Hostages must be released. Ultimately and always, our call is for a ceasefire. Peace is the first step to recovery.
The IPC is a partnership of 21 organizations, including WHO, who work together to determine the severity and extent of acute and chronic food insecurity and acute malnutrition situations within countries, according to internationally recognised standards.
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