Israel’s nearly two-year war pushed parts of Gaza into “man-made” famine, according to a report published in August by a United Nations-backed initiative, deepening the Palestinians’ struggle for survival under relentless bombing, mass displacement and the spread of disease.
The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed expert panel that assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition, helped to fuel growing international outcry over Israel’s campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks – and was cited by some of countries that recently made moves towards formally recognizing a Palestinian state. The IPC forecast that by the end of September nearly a third of Gaza’s total population would face famine conditions, although it has not yet provided an update on that forecast.
In Gaza governorate alone – the largest by population of five in the Gaza Strip – more than half a million people were condemned to a cycle of “starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC added. The Israeli assault on Gaza City, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is targeting one of Hamas’ “remaining strongholds” has choked relief operations for starving Palestinians, according to rights workers.
Michael Fakhri, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, accused Israel of using hunger “as a weapon against Palestinians,” in violation of international law.
“Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine.” Michael Fakhri, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food
“Israel is using food and aid as a weapon to humiliate, weaken, displace and kill Palestinians in Gaza,” Fakhri told CNN on August 28.
Israel rejected the IPC’s findings, with the Israeli agency that oversees the entry of aid into Gaza claiming the report was “false” and based on “partial, biased” data “originating from Hamas.” Netanyahu slammed the UN-backed report, in a statement from his office, adding that “Israel does not have a policy of starvation.”
Israel has since insisted that it has stepped up the entry of aid into Gaza. But aid agencies say that Israel’s intensification of the war, particularly around Gaza City, has compounded the misery faced by Palestinians. Here is a look, in five charts, at how the situation described by the IPC materialized.
Famine projected to spread to central, southern Gaza
The IPC projected that famine would spread to Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza and further south, in Khan Younis by the end of September, affecting nearly 641,000 people.
Up to June 2026, at least 132,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, including more than 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death, the IPC added.
Under the IPC – a five-phase indicator used to measure the severity of food insecurity – a famine can only be declared if three thresholds are met: at least 20% of households face extreme food shortages, the proportion of children assessed as acutely malnourished reaches a certain threshold, and at least two in every 10,000 people die each day from starvation, or from malnutrition and disease.
Israel accused the IPC of lowering the second threshold of acutely malnourished children for a famine declaration, which the IPC has denied.
Researchers use three methods for assessing child malnutrition – either a child’s height and weight, their BMI, or a child’s mid-upper arm circumference, known as MUAC. The IPC used the latter, a metric employed since 2019, to determine that at least 15% of children aged six to 59 months have a mid-upper arm circumference of less than 125mm or edema, the agency told CNN. The thresholds for famine classification are “standard and were not modified for Gaza,” the IPC told CNN, adding that the MUAC metric “is the measurement most frequently available and has strong correlation with mortality outcomes,” and was also used in famine classifications in Sudan and South Sudan this decade.
Human rights advocates say Israel’s destruction of health infrastructure and intensified hostilities have hampered efforts to document the full scope of famine in Gaza.
After more than 700 days of war, 455 Palestinians have died of malnutrition or starvation, including 151 children, the health ministry in Gaza reported on October 1. One hundred and seventy-seven of the total number have died of malnutrition or starvation since the IPC confirmed famine on August 15, it said.
How much UN aid is getting into Gaza?
Israel’s vast web of bureaucratic impediments, including delayed approvals, arduous border checks and the arbitrary rejection of items, throttles the amount of aid that makes it to the other side of the border and sends food costs soaring, the UN and aid agencies say.
After visiting the region in late August, US Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, warned that Netanyahu’s government was “implementing a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians” and accused Israel of using food “as a weapon of war.” Israel has denied the allegations.
“The findings from our trip lead to the inescapable conclusion that the Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza has gone far beyond the targeting of Hamas to imposing collective punishment on the Palestinians there, with the goal of making life for them unsustainable,” said the report, published on September 11. “That is why it restricts the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
Israeli authorities have said trucks “remain uncollected” at the border with Gaza – accusing the UN of failing to coordinate the entry of vehicles into the strip.
But Sam Rose, the acting director of affairs for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, says Israel – which has near-total jurisdiction over what goods enter and exit Gaza – has controlled “to the calorie” the volume, type and overall flow of food into the enclave. “The system is designed not to function smoothly,” he said.
Israeli authorities “know and analyze each truck that goes into Gaza, the weight and the calories,” a senior official with COGAT, the Israeli agency that controls the entry of aid into the enclave, said in September. According to a COGAT statement published in response to the IPC famine declaration, “analysis of contents of food aid trucks that entered the Gaza Strip reveal that 4,400 calories per person per day entered Gaza since the beginning of August.”
However, as of May, Palestinians were consuming just 1,400 calories per day – or “67 per cent of what a human body needs to survive,” at 2,300 calories, the UN reported in June.
Last October, Israel’s government banned UNRWA from operating in areas under its control, a prohibition that went into effect in January, having accused the agency of failing to stop Hamas’ alleged theft of aid. An internal US government review found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza.
When the trickle of relief does enter the strip, aid workers face intensified hostilities, damaged roads and limited fuel supplies – impeding internal distribution efforts, minimizing viable routes and blocking access to displaced Palestinians, said Rose.
What other ways are there to receive aid?
Israel says UN aid makes up only part of the relief that gets into Gaza. A senior COGAT official told a briefing in early September that 27% of the trucks entering Gaza are UN vehicles, claiming it was “a lie” that the UN had brought in 600 aid trucks a day before the war.
“There is no famine in Gaza. Period,” the official said, adding that “Israel and the IDF are trying to strengthen the humanitarian situation in Gaza with partners.”
In May, the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) established a program that now plans to operate up to five distribution sites in the enclave, all but one in southern Gaza – which rely on private military contractors and largely replaced 400 UN-led hubs.
Relief and health workers say these other methods of delivering food in Gaza, including the GHF sites and aid pallet drops from planes, are dehumanizing and inaccessible for many Palestinians, and expose them to injury or death.
At least 1,172 people were killed “near militarized supply sites” between May 27 and September 9, the UN said on September 10, with another 1,084 deaths along convoy supply routes. In August, UN experts called for the immediate closure of GHF-operated sites in Gaza and accused Israeli forces of opening “indiscriminate fire” on people seeking aid there. The advocates warned the hubs are “especially difficult” for women, children, people with disabilities and elderly Palestinians to access.
GHF has defended its work in Gaza and said earlier in September that it was the only organization in Gaza able to deliver food “at scale without interference.” The organization also said that it had “repeatedly sought collaboration with UN agencies and international NGOs to deliver aid side-by-side” but that the UN had “declined those offers.” The Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots toward crowds in some instances and denied responsibility for other casualties near aid hubs.
The US and Israel plan to set up 12 additional sites across the enclave, an Israeli official told CNN in August. However, there is no indication that the new sites have been established. In September, GHF said it had sought IDF permission to open sites in northern Gaza but that Israel had not granted the permission.
“People are walking into death traps to try to retrieve aid.” Mohammed Khaleel, an American surgeon who was deployed to Gaza
“With parents injured and their siblings starving, many teenagers and young adults are taking the risk,” Mohammed Khaleel, an American surgeon who was deployed to Gaza earlier this year, told CNN in August.
“We’ve even heard some people report that they will go and accept their fate. Dying from a gunshot may be preferable to dying from starvation,” he added.
Farmland is shrinking and becoming increasingly inaccessible
Israel’s two-year offensive in Gaza had left just 1.5% of cropland accessible and undamaged as of July 28, according to the UN – largely preventing Palestinians from cultivating produce.
That destruction, coupled with Israel’s fishing ban and intensified assault in the north, has further limited the sources of food available to hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
“It is not by chance that Israel has focused its starvation tactics in northern Gaza,” Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur, said. “They have announced their intent to push people from the north to the south of Gaza… Just as now, the focus of their starvation campaign on Gaza City correlates with their invasion plans.”
The military’s invasion of Gaza City will collapse an “already fragile” aid supply chain, warned Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme.
Relief agencies need a ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, large-scale multi-sector aid, protection of civilians and infrastructure – and restoration of commercial and local food systems – to reverse famine in Gaza, said Husain.
“We are already at the brink. Another escalation – especially in Gaza City – could push the situation into unimaginable catastrophe,” he added. “It will not only result in more deaths but destroy any foundation for future recovery.”