How Israel’s policies created famine in Gaza

Famine is taking place in Gaza – just a short drive away from hundreds of trucks of aid sitting idly outside its borders.

How did we get here?

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the United Nations, is the world’s leading hunger monitor.

Its assessment that half a million people – a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza – are suffering from famine is shocking for many reasons.

Primary among them is the report’s acknowledgement that this situation is “entirely man-made”, with aid organisations today accusing Israel of the “systematic obstruction” of food entering the Gaza Strip.

The IPC report says that it has found that people living in the Gaza City area are experiencing famine conditions of “starvation, destitution, and death”.

It also finds that starvation is spreading rapidly – with famine expected to be in much of the rest of Gaza in September, on current trends.

The report has reached its conclusion via three key indicators:

• Starvation: At least 1 in 5 households face an extreme shortage in their consumption of food
• Malnutrition: Roughly 1 in 3 children or more are acutely malnourished
• Mortality: At least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily because of outright starvation or the combination of malnutrition and disease

When two of these three “thresholds” are met, the IPC recognises that famine is taking place. The IPC says in Gaza it assessed that all three thresholds had been reached.

The IPC says the “mortality” indicator is not showing in the available data because of a breakdown of monitoring systems. It believes most non-traumatic deaths are not being recorded.

Based on the evidence that does exist, and expert judgement, the IPC has concluded that the “mortality” threshold for famine has been met.

The report was published as Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry recorded two new deaths from malnutrition, bringing the total number to 273 deaths, including 112 children.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas.

Israel has accused international aid agencies like the UN of not picking up aid waiting at Gaza’s border, pointing to the hundreds of trucks sitting idle.

After weeks of the world seeing images of starving children, with distended stomachs and protruding bones, many will feel like the signs that a famine was imminent were a long time coming.

The ability of Palestinians to access food has been complicated throughout the nearly two-year war in Gaza.

Israel has long placed restrictions on goods entering Gaza, and those restrictions increased after the beginning of the war on 7 October 2023, triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel.

However, since March 2025, the situation has deteriorated rapidly after Israel introduced a nearly three-month total blockade on goods entering Gaza.

Under significant international pressure, Israel began allowing a limited amount of goods back into Gaza in late-May.

It also introduced a new system of food distribution operated by a controversial American group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to replace the previous UN-led system of food distribution.

The GHF has four food distribution sites in militarised zones that Palestinians must walk long distances at risk to reach, replacing the 400 distribution points in the community under the UN’s system.

Finding food has become a deadly endeavour for Palestinians and they have regularly told us that they have to choose between starvation and death, referring to the near-daily shootings of people trying to get aid at GHF distribution sites.

The United Nations has recorded the killing of at least 994 Palestinians in the vicinity of GHF sites, since late May, some of the 1,760 killed trying to access aid.

The UN says the majority killed were shot by Israeli troops, something corroborated by eye-witnesses we have spoken to and medics in Gaza. Israel has repeatedly rejected the allegations.

Under this system, overseen by Israel, starvation in Gaza has expanded.

As pressure continued to grow on Israel to allow more food in, in late July it began allowing more trucks of aid into Gaza each day and introducing “tactical pauses” in fighting to allow more aid convoys to move through the territory.

More aid has entered in recent weeks and the astronomical prices of some goods in the markets reduced somewhat – though for many Palestinians, prohibitively expensive. At times the price of flour reached above $85 for a kilo, though that figure began to reduce.

The UN and aid organisations say that despite Israel loosening some of its restrictions on food getting into the Gaza Strip, it still places significant impediments and obstructions in being able to collect and distribute aid.

The organisations say what’s needed is 600 trucks a day bringing goods into Gaza for people to meet their basic needs – currently no more than half of that is being allowed in.

Israel also began allowing airdrops of aid, something criticised as inefficient, dangerous, and ultimately a distraction by humanitarian organisations.

Israel’s accusation that Hamas is responsible for the hunger crisis has also been criticised. Multiple reports, including an internal US government report, found there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas.

There is indeed widespread looting of trucks entering Gaza – but aid agencies say most of the looting is by crowds of desperate Palestinians and some organised groups trying to make a resale profit.

Ultimately, aid agencies have been repeating for months that in order to avert starvation and famine, Gaza needs to be flooded with aid entering by road and currently Israel still imposes restrictions.

A number of Israeli government officials have today rejected the IPC’s report.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the IPC of publishing a “tailor-made fabricated report to fit Hamas’s fake campaign”.

The Israeli army body called Cogat (the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), which is responsible for managing crossing into Gaza, called the IPC report a “False and Biased Report, Based on Partial Data Originating From the Hamas Terrorist Organization”.

Among other criticisms, Israel says that the IPC “changed its own global standard”, halving a threshold of those facing famine from 30% to 15% as well as “totally ignoring its second criterion of death rate”.

The IPC rejected the accusations and said that it has used long-established standards that have been used previously in similar situations.

Israel’s accusation that the IPC has used “Hamas data” appears to reference that some of the reporting about malnutrition in Gaza comes from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health there.

However, the ministry’s data on deaths and injuries has widely been seen as reliable throughout the war.

Responses to the report from UN agencies and international leaders have been strong.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that Israel, as the occupying power, “has unequivocal obligations under international law – including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity”.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said the famine was the direct result of Israel’s “systematic obstruction” of aid entering Gaza.

Meanwhile the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.”

On Friday, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said it was “a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing”.

Israel has this week authorised the call-up of tens of thousands of reservist troops to conduct its controversial invasion and occupation of Gaza City, the area where the IPC has declared famine is taking place.

Netanyahu says a takeover is the best option to defeat Hamas, end the war and to return the Israeli hostages from Gaza.

The invasion would forcibly displace an estimated one million Palestinians living in Gaza City and the areas around it. Israel has already told medics and aid agencies to make preparations to make plans to evacuate the area.

A joint statement from a number of UN organisations including Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization expressed alarm about the planned offensive, saying “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.”