A United Nations-backed food security report has warned that the entire Gaza Strip is classified in emergency levels of hunger, and that the threat of famine persists as aid dwindles and winter approaches. As of October, some 1.84 million people across the Gaza Strip are classified in crisis levels (IPC Phase 3) or worse, including some 133,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) and 664,000 in emergency levels (IPC Phase 4).
"One year into the conflict, famine looms. This is intolerable," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday, according to his spokesperson.
The Secretary-General said he was alarmed by the report's findings that high levels of displacement and restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid mean that the people of Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
Guterres stressed that crossing points must open immediately, bureaucratic impediments must be removed, and law and order must be restored so that UN agencies can deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
The updated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released on Thursday predicts that 345,000 Palestinians will face catastrophic levels of hunger in the coming months. Another 876,000 people, or 41 percent of the population, will be one step behind them in Phase 4 (Emergency).
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told reporters that the report’s conclusions are “beyond terrifying.”
“They show that the number of people at catastrophic levels of hunger is expected to double in the coming months, and the risk of famine persists across the whole of Gaza,” he said at a news conference in New York. “The world cannot let this happen.”
He said the hunger crisis is “principally the consequence of decisions made by the Israeli authorities” and warned that starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.
“As the occupying power, Israel has the specific obligation under IHL [international humanitarian law] to bring into Gaza the necessary foodstuffs, medical supplies and other articles, and to facilitate humanitarian relief by all means at its disposal,” Türk said.
“One year into the conflict, the risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip. Given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may materialize.”
Overall, 91 percent of Gazans - or nearly 2 million Palestinians - will face acute food insecurity, according to the IPC. Although less populated, Rafah and the northern governorates are likely to face more severe acute food insecurity.
The report adds that nearly the entire population has been displaced multiple times, risking injury or death from shelling and aerial bombardment, while many vulnerable groups are unable to relocate or find safe shelter. The majority live in makeshift camps with an alarming density of nearly 40,000 people per square kilometer.
The IPC said that a temporary surge in humanitarian and commercial aid between May and August helped alleviate acute food insecurity and malnutrition conditions in Gaza, but September saw the lowest volume of commercial and humanitarian goods entering the enclave since March.
“This sharp decline will profoundly limit food availability and the ability of families to feed themselves and access services in the next few months,” the IPC said.
“The upcoming winter season is expected to bring colder temperatures along with rain and potential flooding. Seasonal diseases and increasingly limited access to water and health services are likely to worsen acute malnutrition, especially in densely populated areas, where the risk of epidemics is already high.”
Humanitarian aid into Gaza has never reached the scale or consistency that the United Nations has been calling for throughout the year-long conflict. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies is a war crime.
On Wednesday, the acting humanitarian chief told a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation that no food aid had entered northern Gaza in the first two weeks of October and that all essential supplies were running out.
“Throughout Gaza, less than a third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October were facilitated without major incidents or delays,” Joyce Msuya said.
“Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk. This woeful and unacceptable trend must change.”
Msuya stressed that humanitarian operations must be facilitated both into and throughout Gaza, including to the north, to reach all civilians in need.
“The level of suffering in Gaza defies our ability to capture it in words, or even to comprehend its scale,” she said.
“Reality is brutal in Gaza, and it gets worse every day, as the bombs continue to fall, as fierce fighting continues unabated, and as supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”
On Tuesday, after two weeks of closed crossings, a trickle of aid - 12 trucks of wheat flour - entered northern Gaza, but these supplies were only enough for 9,200 families, and all essential supplies are running out.
The UN has been reporting similar problems for months. But it also acknowledges that it faces distribution challenges because of lawlessness and badly damaged roads, in addition to Israeli obstacles, including making convoys wait for hours until it is dark and unsafe to proceed in a war zone.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has been able to reach only about 100,000 people due to supply shortages, access restrictions and ongoing fighting. WFP said Thursday that without safe and sustained access, it cannot deliver assistance at the scale required. It reiterated its call for a ceasefire.
In her briefing to the Security Council, Msuya said the people of Gaza have suffered multiple mass casualty incidents in a matter of days as a result of Israeli airstrikes. In just one week, nearly 400 Palestinians were reportedly killed and nearly 1,500 injured in Gaza.
“The world has seen the images of patients and displaced persons, sheltering near Al Aqsa hospital, burning alive. Scores of others, including women and children, are suffering the excruciating pain of severe life-changing burns,” she said.
“There is no way to get them the urgent care they need to survive and manage such injuries. If such horror does not awaken our sense of humanity and propel us to action, what will?”
Meanwhile, the suffering of the people of Gaza continues in all parts of the territory. The Gaza Health Ministry reports that more than 42,500 Palestinians, most of them civilians, most of them women and children, have been killed and more than 99,000 injured since Israel began its war in the Palestinian enclave a year ago.
Among the dead are at least 312 aid workers, 230 UN staff, 986 health workers and 168 journalists. More than 10,000 people - including thousands of children - are missing and presumed dead. In total, Israel's air and ground operations in Gaza since October 7 last year have killed, wounded or left missing more than 150,000 people or more than 7 percent of Gaza's population.
On Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) again raised the alarm about the increasingly dire and dangerous situation faced by civilians in the north, where families are trying to survive in appalling conditions under heavy bombardment.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has confirmed another attack on one of its schools in the north - the third such attack on the agency's facilities this week alone. Dozens of people sheltering there - including children - were reportedly killed when the school in Jabalya was hit on Thursday.
OCHA warns that the continued lack of access to the Jabalya area is having a life-threatening impact. On Friday, the humanitarian office made an urgent request to the Israeli authorities to facilitate the evacuation of a few dozen people reported to be alive and trapped under the rubble.
“We are now awaiting green light. In previous instances, OCHA accompanied rescue teams whose access was facilitated too late, resulting in only dead bodies being recovered,” a UN spokesman said.
OCHA calls on the Israeli authorities to allow safe, rapid, sustained and unimpeded access to Jabalya and all areas of the north where people are in desperate need of assistance. Aid organizations must be allowed to carry out their life-saving work across the Gaza Strip, it said.
Since October 2023, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza, with people dying from widespread attacks, disease and starvation. Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues unabated throughout the territory, resulting in further civilian deaths, injuries, maiming, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Leading UN officials have called the situation in Gaza "apocalyptic," "hell on earth," "beyond catastrophic," and said that the humanitarian community is "running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza".
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: GAZA STRIP: IPC Acute Food Insecurity and Acute Malnutrition Special Snapshot, September 2024 - April 2025, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) , report, released October 17, 2024
https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_Sep2024_Apr2025_Special_Snapshot.pdf