UN agency says Gaza famine is direct result of Israel’s actions and may amount to war crime – as it happened | Gaza

• Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed ‘civilian model’ of aid distribution, furthering its military and objectives in Gaza and furthering starvation, according to a newly published joint report by Forensic Architecture (FA) and the World Peace Foundation (WPF).

• The report by the research agency and charity respectively– published today at the same time as the UN-backed body, IPC confirmed Famine in Gaza – examines two models for aid distribution in Gaza, revealing how since 18 March 2025, Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed ‘civilian model’ of aid distribution, replacing it with a ‘military model’ which furthers Israel’s military and political objectives in Gaza while starving the region’s civilian population.

• The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has condemned Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza and has described the crisis in Gaza as a catastrophic humanitarian situation after a Famine was confirmed by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. His statement today read: “The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable. The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.”

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a report from a global hunger monitor on Friday that said Gaza City and surrounding areas were officially suffering from famine, saying it ignored recent humanitarian steps by Israel. “The IPC report is an outright lie. Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation. Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled two million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

• Far more aid required to tackle the malnutrition threatening the lives of 130,000 Palestinian children, a children’s charity has warned. Plan International UK said in reaction to the IPC’s report that the Famine was an “entirely man-made hunger catastrophe that is killing Gazan children every day”.

• Foreign ministers from European countries, Australia and the United Kingdom on Friday condemned Israel’s plans to construct a settlement east of Jerusalem, they said in a joint statement. “The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” the statement said.

• Mothers in Gaza have resorted to using legume water and herbs as alternative to infant milk amid famine, charity warned. Dr Ra’ed Al-Baba, who works at Al Awda Hospital run by ActionAid’s partner Al-Awda, said usage of alternatives to infant milk had “catastrophic” consequences..

• Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found. As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”.

• The Indonesian government is working on plans to treat 2,000 people from war-ravaged Gaza, holding a series of inter-ministerial discussions to discuss logistics, legality and foreign policy implications relating to the highly sensitive proposal, according to a senior government official. Indonesia announced earlier this month that it would provide temporary medical assistance to 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza, with the uninhabited island of Galang identified as one possible site.

• Israel’s plans to expand the fighting and seize Gaza City have sparked international outcry as well as domestic opposition. The Red Cross became the latest voice to condemn the plan on Thursday, calling it “intolerable”. The Israeli defence ministry approved an expanded offensive to target the remaining Hamas strongholds in the strip. The newly approved plan authorises the call-up of roughly 60,000 reservists, deepening fears the campaign will worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.

• Relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have urged Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to accept a proposed ceasefire deal, saying a failure to do so is “a death sentence for the living hostages and a sentence of disappearance for the deceased ones.”

• Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said at least 17 Palestinians were killed Friday as Israel escalates its activity in the area in the lead-up to its broader planned offensive. An Israeli airstrike hit a school in Sheikh Radwan, a Gaza City neighborhood where tens of Palestinians shelter in makeshift tents in the schoolyard. It killed at least seven people, according to an eyewitness and hospital records.

• Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and his French, British and German counterparts agreed on Friday to resume talks next week on nuclear and sanctions issues, Iranian state media reported. The three major European powers have threatened to re-activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a “snapback” mechanism if Tehran does not return to negotiations on a deal to curb its disputed uranium enrichment programme.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and his French, British and German counterparts agreed on Friday to resume talks next week on nuclear and sanctions issues, Iranian state media reported.

The three major European powers have threatened to re-activate United Nations sanctions on Iran under a “snapback” mechanism if Tehran does not return to negotiations on a deal to curb its disputed uranium enrichment programme.

German foreign minister Johann Wadephul confirmed talks next week and warned Iran that sanctions would snap back into effect unless it reached a verifiable and durable deal to defuse concerns about its nuclear ambitions. He reiterated that time was very short and Iran needed to engage substantively.

Iranian state media said Araqchi and the British, French and German foreign ministers agreed during a phone call for deputy foreign ministers to continue the talks on Tuesday.

During the call, Araqchi “emphasised the legal and moral incompetence of these countries to resort to the [snapback] mechanism, and warned of the consequences of such an action”, Iranian media reported.

The European trio, along with the US, contend that Iran is using the nuclear energy programme to potentially develop weapons capability in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran says it seeks only civilian nuclear power.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has condemned Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza and has described the crisis in Gaza as a catastrophic humanitarian situation after a Famine was confirmed by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

His statement today read:

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable.

The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.

The IPC report makes clear the sickening consequences, especially for children. The Government of Israel can and must immediately act to stop the situation deteriorating any further. It must immediately and sustainably allow unhindered food, medical supplies, fuel, and all types of aid to reach those who so desperately need them.”

Lammy added that the Israeli government must allow the UN and international NGOs to carry out their work and for aid to reach those most in need.

We desperately need an immediate ceasefire, to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required. This includes halting the military operation in Gaza City which is the epicentre of the famine.”

Foreign ministers from European countries, Australia and the United Kingdom on Friday condemned Israel’s plans to construct a settlement east of Jerusalem, they said in a joint statement.

“The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” the statement said.

• The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people – nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza – are experiencing famine.

• The number is to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

• About 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City – known as Gaza governorate.

• For a region to be classified as in famine at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

It is the fifth time in the past 14 years that a famine has been determined by the IPC after previously determining that there was famine in areas of Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024.

Israel has been critical of the U.N.-led operation and accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the militant group deny.

The UN human rights agency’s spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said that the famine confirmed today in Gaza is a direct result of Israel’s actions, and may amount to a war crime.

You can watch it in our video below:

Humanitarian organisations and charities have been reacting after Famine was confirmed in Gaza City for the first time by a UN-backed body responsible for monitoring food security (see 10.07).

Here are some of the latest responses:

Helen Stawski, Oxfam Policy Lead said:

Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition and disease.

Oxfam alone has more than $2.5m worth of life-saving aid, including high-calorie food packages – now sitting in warehouses outside Gaza. Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever.

Moazzam Malik, CEO Save the Children UK said:

This siege and the weaponisation of aid must end. Essential supplies must flow without hinderance on political grounds. The UK must suspend all arms transfers to Israel, including components for F-35 fighter jets used to rain terror on civilians. The UK must act against those that are responsible for these atrocities.”

Samah Wadi, a nutritional expert working at a primary healthcare centre for CARE International UK in Deir Al-Balah said:

We see people at our clinic who think nutritional supplements can replace food, then you are forced to explain that these nutritional supplements are just complementary.

They are looking for anything to survive on, to hold onto, even if it means it will only save them for another couple of hours.”

Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed ‘civilian model’ of aid distribution, furthering its military and objectives in Gaza and furthering starvation, according to a newly published joint report by Forensic Architecture (FA) and the World Peace Foundation (WPF).

The report by the research agency and charity respectively– published today at the same time as the UN-backed body, IPC confirmed Famine in Gaza – examines two models for aid distribution in Gaza, revealing how since 18 March 2025, Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed ‘civilian model’ of aid distribution, replacing it with a ‘military model’ which furthers Israel’s military and political objectives in Gaza while starving the region’s civilian population.

FA verified at least 64 incidents occurring between 18 March and 1 August of civilians being attacked by the Israeli military while seeking aid, including 25 incidents at and around Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ration stations.

It concludes that Israel has used aid to break down existing social and civil structures in Gaza, grounded in relations between family networks, political groups, and international aid organisations, to generate dependency and, as a result, to establish political control over the Palestinian population.

Eyal Weizman, director of Forensic Architecture said

Aid can be lethal when used in a manipulative way. We have unpacked the architecture of starvation imposed by Israel in Gaza.

It is composed of acts of construction and destruction: the destruction of Palestinian agriculture and food sovereignty, the destruction of Palestinian civil society, and the construction of death traps.’

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation (WPF) added:

‘The dehumanisation of Palestinians, the stripping of basic dignity, and the tearing apart of the fabric of the community are not accidental byproducts of the mass starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza.

There is every reason to believe that these are what Israel intends through its militarised ration system.’

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, accused Hamas of a “false starvation campaign” and said the U.N. and others were spreading unfounded claims about hunger in Gaza.

It comes after The IPC published its 59-page report, saying there should be “no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed” to unfolding Famine in Gaza.