A Palestinian boy reacts as he waits to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Monday. Khamis Al-Rifi/Reuters

An increasing number of Palestinians in Gaza are starving to death as tons of food, clean water and medical supplies sit just outside the territory’s borders, and aid agencies have warned that Gaza is as close to famine as it’s ever been.

For months, the United Nations has said that Palestinians are facing critical levels of acute food insecurity, and on Tuesday the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative said that “the worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding.”

Of 74 malnutrition-related deaths in 2025, 63 occurred in July – including 24 children under 5, a child over 5, and 38 adults, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week, noting that the situation was “entirely preventable,” while pointing to Israel’s blockade on aid.

“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made, and that’s very clear,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied that Palestinians in Gaza face starvation.

Since Sunday, 14 people have starved to death in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The following criteria need to be met for a famine to be determined, according to the IPC:

At least 1 in 5 households face an extreme food shortage

Roughly 1 in 3 or a higher proportion of children are acutely malnourished

At least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily (or at least 4 in every 10,000 children under 5 are dying daily) because of outright starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

Two of those thresholds have been reached in Gaza already, the IPC said Tuesday, adding that a new analysis is underway. The IPC does not declare a famine but provides an analysis to allow governments and others to do so.

“Many people will have died by the time a famine is declared,” it added.

The IPC has previously classified four places as being in famine: Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC said in a new report.

“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.”

Stressing that malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July, the report found that over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished.

Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children aged under 5, with at least 16 reported deaths since July 17, it added.

“Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response,” the IPC urged.

“This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering,” it added.

The report noted people’s access to food across Gaza is “now alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous,” as since May 27, over 1,000 people have been killed while trying to access food.

Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza for 18 years and, since March 2, has shut down all crossings, blocking the entry of aid convoys and ignoring international calls to reopen them.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 147 people have died of starvation since October 2023, including 88 children.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images

(LONDON) — The “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza, according to a warning issued Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global initiative monitoring hunger with the backing of governments, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC warning said. “Latest data thresholds have been reached for food consumption in the Gaza Strip, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.”

More than 100 aid groups warned last week of a dire food shortage in the territory, saying there was an impending “mass starvation” for the Palestinians living there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his administration have denied there is a hunger crisis in Gaza.

“Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza. What a bold-faced lie,” Netanyahu said during an event in Jerusalem on Sunday. “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”

U.S. President Donald Trump appeared on Monday to contradict Netanyahu, saying he doesn’t know if he believes claims that there is no starvation occurring in Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it would put in place daily “tactical” pauses and open corridors to facility aid delivery.

IPC said Tuesday it was issuing a “stark” warning about the scenario unfolding in Gaza, adding that malnutrition had been “rising rapidly” in the first half of July.

“Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response,” the initiative said in its alert. “This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”

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Geneva, Switzerland – Famine is “now unfolding” in Gaza , with thousands of children malnourished and hunger-related deaths on the rise among the youngest, the UN’s monitor warned on Tuesday, as Israel continued a campaign increasingly viewed as genocidal.

Famine is “now unfolding in Gaza,” where thousands of children are malnourished and deaths of starvation are on the rise, the UN’s ntegrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said. © Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said that air drops over Gaza will not be enough to avert the “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“The worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip,” said the UN-backed group of organizations, used as a monitor to gauge malnutrition.

“Immediate, unimpeded” humanitarian access into Gaza was the only way to stop rapidly rising “starvation and death,” it said.

The IPC issued its alert after days of aid groups sounding the alarm over hunger-related deaths in Gaza.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2 after it unilaterally abandoned a ceasefire with Hamas. In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume, under the management of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a universally-derided organization set up by Israel and the US, and staffed by mercenaries.

GHF’s aid distribution centers have since become death traps for hundreds of Palestinians killed in near-daily massacres.