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

A global hunger monitor confirmed on Friday that Gaza City and nearby areas are officially experiencing famine, warning it will likely spread—an assessment expected to intensify pressure on Israel to permit greater humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people – nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza – are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City – known as Gaza governorate – which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.

It was the first time the IPC had recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but said limited data prevented any precise classification.

Israel dismissed the report as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food.

“There is no famine in Gaza,” the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.

Extreme Food Shortages

For a region to be classified as in a 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.

Previously, the IPC has only registered famines in Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

Even if a region has not yet been classified as in famine because those thresholds have not been met, the IPC can determine that households there are suffering famine conditions, which it describes as starvation, destitution and death.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that the Gaza famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.

He called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages still held by Hamas and unfettered humanitarian access.

“People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing … We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity.”

U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said that famine in Gaza was the direct result of Israeli government actions, and warned that deaths from starvation could amount to a war crime.

The IPC analysis comes after Britain, Canada, Australia and many European states said the humanitarian crisis had reached “unimaginable levels”.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month said many people there were starving, putting him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly said there was no starvation and blamed Hamas for creating food shortages.

Israel Controls Gaza Access

Israel controls all access to Gaza. COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows, said the IPC report ignored Israeli data on aid deliveries and was part of an international campaign aimed at denigrating Israel.

“The IPC report is not only biased but also serves Hamas’ propaganda campaign,” the agency said.

The U.N. has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza and distributing it throughout the war zone, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness. Israel has been critical of the U.N.-led operation and accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the militants deny.

The IPC said the analysis released on Friday only covered people living in Gaza, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates. It was unable to classify the North Gaza governorate due to access restrictions and a lack of data, and it excluded any remaining population in the southern Rafah region, as it is largely uninhabited.

It is the fifth time in the past 14 years that a famine has been determined by the IPC – an initiative involving 21 aid groups, United Nations agencies and regional organisations that is funded by the European Union, Germany, Britain and Canada.

Past Famine Assessments Highlighted

The IPC has previously assessed that there was famine in areas of Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024. The IPC says it does not declare famine, but instead provides analysis for governments and others to do so.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that 65% of Americans believe the U.S. should help those starving in Gaza.

Israel has long counted on the U.S., its most powerful ally, for military aid and diplomatic support. An erosion of U.S. public support would be a worrisome sign for Israel as it faces not only Hamas militants in Gaza but unresolved conflict with Iran, its regional arch-foe.

The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to broker an end to the conflict.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Famine has struck Gaza City and will likely spread over the next month, a global hunger monitor has determined. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people — nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza — are experiencing famine, and that could rise to 641,000 by the end of September. Israel has dismissed the report as ‘false and biased.’

The world’s leading authority on food crises said Friday the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it is likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said famine is occurring in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that it could spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

The IPC report comes after months of warnings by aid groups that Israel’s restrictions of food and other aid into Gaza, and its military offensive, were causing starvation among Palestinian civilians, particularly children. Yet this is the first official confirmation.

“Read it in sorrow and in anger,” United Nations emergency co-ordinator Tom Fletcher told reporters in Geneva, commenting on the release of the report.

Fletcher assailed the “systematic obstruction” of aid by Israel and demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu let supplies in on a massive scale.

“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed, yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” he said.

WATCH | ‘Everyone owns this’: UN official on famine conditions: Gaza famine ‘a moment of collective shame,’ UN aid chief says United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher says the famine that has struck part of Gaza was preventable, blaming the ‘systematic obstruction’ of aid by Israel. The comments on Friday came in response to a UN-backed monitor’s report that famine is occurring in Gaza City and likely to spread to other parts of the territory. Israel is rejecting the findings.

More than half a million people in Gaza, about a quarter of the population, face catastrophic levels of hunger and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes, the IPC report said.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a denial in response to the report.

“Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets,” the Israeli ministry said in a statement.

“The IPC report is an outright lie. Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation,” Netanyahu’s office posted on X.

Conditions assessed over 6-week period

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory, known as COGAT, also rejected the report, and said that significant steps had been taken to expand the amount of aid entering the strip in recent weeks.

In March, Israel cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages. Israel eased those restrictions in May and says there’s currently no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza.

But it also pushed ahead with a new U.S.-backed aid delivery system that requires Palestinians to travel long distances and pass through Israeli military lines to get aid. The traditional, UN-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds overwhelm entering convoys.

“For humanity’s sake, let us in,” said Fletcher.

Witnesses, health officials and the UN rights office say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid from both providers, while Israel says it has only fired warning shots and that the toll is exaggerated.

The data analyzed between July 1 and Aug. 15 showed clear evidence that thresholds for starvation and acute malnutrition have been reached. Gathering data for mortality has been harder, but the IPC said it is reasonable to conclude from the evidence that the necessary threshold has likely been reached.

The IPC says a famine exists in an area when all three of the following conditions are confirmed:

At least 20 per cent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving.

At least 30 per cent of children six months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height.

At least two people, or four children under the age of 5, for every 10,000 persons, are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

Read the full IPC report:

Israel plots wider scale Gaza operation

Kirsty Blacka, an Australian emergency nurse who worked in Gaza City’s Al-Quds hospital through June, said the lack of food has been compounded by contaminated water causing diarrhea and infections, and that diseases are harder to recover from when people are malnourished.

Families in Gaza City say they’re watching their loved ones waste away. Yousef Sbeteh’s two teenage children were injured by shrapnel during an Israeli airstrike in June and have spent the last two months in the hospital. While there, they’ve both lost weight because there hasn’t been enough food, he said.

Ahmad Sbeteh, 17, injured by shrapnel from a strike on a neighbouring house, has lost about 33 pounds, with doctors saying the lack of healthy food and nutritional supplements is slowing his recovery. He is shown at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday. Before the shrapnel injury, he had no pre-existing conditions, doctors say. (Abdel Kareem Hana/The Associated Press)

Sbeteh’s 15-year-old daughter Aya lost nearly 20 kilograms, or about 30 per cent of her body weight, according to her doctors.

“Doctors say she needs protein, meat and fish,” Sbeteh said while sitting beside his frail daughter. “But I can’t provide that now.” Sbeteh’s 17-year-old son Ahmad has lost about 15 kilograms, doctors say.

The report comes as Israel’s defence minister warned on Friday that Gaza City could be destroyed unless Hamas accepts Israel’s terms, as Netanyahu said this week he would authorize the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City.

“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’s murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

He restated Israel’s ceasefire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’s complete disarmament.

Hamas has said it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state.

The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days.

Gaza City is Hamas’s military and governing stronghold, atop of what Israel believes is an extensive tunnel network. It is also sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians and still houses some of the strip’s critical infrastructure and health facilities.

Hamas said earlier this week that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators, which — if accepted by Israel — could forestall the offensive.

WATCH | Netanyahu approves wider operation in Gaza: Netanyahu rejects ceasefire, approves ‘takeover’ of Gaza City Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a ceasefire deal approved by Hamas, and military bombardments have begun in Gaza City, triggering more displacement, destruction and desperation for residents.

Many Israelis fear an assault could doom the roughly 20 hostages still alive after Hamas-led militants launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed some 1,200 people, with 250 others taken hostage.

More than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, according to local health officials, and much of the enclave has been destroyed.

The logistics of evacuating civilians from Gaza City are expected to be daunting. Many residents say repeated displacement is pointless since nowhere in Gaza is safe, while medical groups warn Israel’s calls to move patients south is unworkable, with no facilities to receive them.

Famine was officially declared on Friday in part of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, by the world’s leading authority on hunger as Israel vowed to raze the area if Hamas doesn’t agree to its terms.

The declaration of famine by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, comes as deaths from starvation rise across the Palestinian enclave in a spiraling crisis under Israel’s military assault and aid restrictions.

Israel’s military is preparing to push ahead with a new operation to seize Gaza City that could displace hundreds of thousands of people and worsen the dire situation there. It has launched intense strikes on the city this week after announcing it had begun the first stage of its planned assault.

Famine declared

The IPC, an internationally recognized system for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition, said in its report that famine had been confirmed in the Gaza Governorate — and that it was projected to expand to the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates farther south by the end of September if the humanitarian situation does not change.

The number of people now experiencing famine in Gaza was nearly 514,000, the IPC said — around a quarter of the enclave’s population. That was projected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

“Famine is a race against time,” the IPC said. “An immediate ceasefire and end to the conflict is critical to enabling an unimpeded, large-scale humanitarian response to save lives.”

Palestinian doctor Ahmed Basal examines a child for malnutrition at Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, on Aug. 7. Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters

The United Nations-backed body had up until now only declared famine on four other occasions since it was first established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year.

The report’s findings were met with little surprise by global health authorities and humanitarian groups.

“Famine warnings have been clear for months,” said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program.

“A ceasefire is an absolute and moral imperative now,” said World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The world has waited too long, watching tragic and unnecessary deaths mount from this man-made famine.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected the report’s findings, calling them a “lie,” and repeated that “Israel does not have a policy of starvation.”

The IPC’s 59-page report does not state that Israel has a policy of starvation in Gaza.

Earlier, Israel’s foreign ministry said the IPC had published a “fabricated report to fit Hamas’s fake campaign.” It hit out at the IPC’s methods, accusing it of having “twisted its own rules and ignored its own criteria.”

The IPC rejected Israel’s accusation.

Mike Huckabee, the United States’ ambassador to Israel, attacked the famine declaration before it was officially announced.

“You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilized Hamas savages,” he said in a post on X early Friday.

Famine, the highest phase of the IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale, is classified when an area has at least 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition and at least two people or four children out of every 10,000 people are dying each day from starvation.

Palestinians at a food distribution point in Gaza City on Aug. 10. Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images

But the bar can also be met if 15% of children are considered to be suffering from acute malnutrition based on mid-upper arm circumference with evidence of rapidly worsening underlying drivers, according to the IPC, which cited the latter practice in its report.

The IPC said that this did not mean it had altered its threshold for famine, saying it used this method in line with established standards where a lack of other data is available, as it had also done in South Sudan.

This “does not represent a ‘lowered threshold’ in IPC methodology. Instead, it demonstrates the continued application of established IPC standards,” it said.

Israel has repeatedly denied reports of growing starvation in Gaza, while seeking to blame any hunger in the enclave on humanitarian groups and Hamas.

The hunger crisis in Gaza intensified after Israel launched a blockade on March 2, in the middle of its ceasefire with Hamas, barring the entry of food and other vital supplies for more than two months. It lifted the blockade in May, but only allowed a basic amount of aid in for weeks after that.

Data published by COGAT states that in the weeks since Israel lifted its blockade on May 19 to August 17, when the database was last updated, 9,165 trucks carrying aid entered the enclave, with food making up just over 95% of the supplies.

That boils down to an average of around 100 trucks carrying aid per day during that time period. Prior to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, around 500 trucks per day were entering the enclave, according to humanitarian groups.

Israel threatens ‘gates of hell’

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Friday to open the “gates of hell” on Gaza City until Hamas agreed to Israel’s conditions for ending the war, including the release of all hostages and the militant group’s complete disarmament.

If not, he said, the city would “become like Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas that have been largely reduced to ruins under Israel’s 22-month offensive.

Netanyahu said a day earlier that he had authorized the operation to take over Gaza City, while also revealing he had instructed “immediate negotiations” to begin for a deal to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of the hostages who remain held in the enclave.

The video statement followed days of silence after Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by Arab mediators.

The IPC’s declaration comes just over three weeks after it warned that the “worst-case scenario of famine” was already unfolding in the Palestinian enclave under Israel’s offensive and crippling aid restrictions — but it had emphasized the alert was not a formal famine classification.

A Palestinian woman searches in the sand for legumes in Nuseirat, Gaza, during an aid airdrop mission, on Aug. 5. Eyad Baba / AFP via Getty Images

Aid groups have repeatedly warned in recent weeks there is still not enough food entering Gaza to stave off famine.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Monday it had recorded three new adult deaths “due to famine and malnutrition” within a 24-hour period, bringing the total death toll from starvation to 266 people, including 112 children.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies, marking a major escalation in a decades-long conflict.

Since then, more than 62,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to the local Palestinian health ministry, with much of the territory destroyed.

Among the dead are hundreds of people who have been killed while trying to seek aid following the introduction of a new distribution system led by Israel and the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread across the enclave, a United Nations-backed global hunger monitor has said.

On Friday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people, close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza, are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

This comes after 22 months of war, during which Israeli forces have destroyed infrastructure and bakeries, blocked the entry of aid into the besieged Strip, and targeted and killed desperate Palestinians seeking food.

This is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group has predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

Here’s how global leaders and NGOs are reacting to the IPC report:

United Nations

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza’s famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.

“Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival,” Guterres said. “People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing.”

The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has “unequivocal obligations” under international law, including the duty to unsure that food and medical supplies are made available to the population of Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has highlighted that “months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears”, but now the famine is now confirmed in Gaza City and the surrounding areas, it is “time for political will” to end it.

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“We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity,” he said. “No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow – it is now.”

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine has been “openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war” and called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “end the retribution” and open Gaza’s crossings for unrestricted access.

Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the UN-backed declaration that famine was present in parts of Gaza.

“The IPC report is an outright lie,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

He added that “Israel does not have a policy of starvation”, citing the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip during the war.

The controversial Israel- and US-backed GHF took over all food aid distribution in Gaza from the UN in May. Since then, Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 2,000 aid seekers have been killed.

Hamas

Palestinian group Hamas called for an immediate end to the war and the lifting of the Israeli siege on the territory after the UN declared a famine in parts of Gaza.

In a statement published online, the group called for “immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege” and demanded that crossings be opened “without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel”.

The group went on to say that the declaration by the UN has confirmed the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and accused Israel of using starvation as a “tool of war”.

Palestinian Authority

The Foreign Ministry of the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, said the IPC report “closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine”.

“It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence in all its forms and dimensions to immediately halt the famine and the aggression against our people,” it said in a statement on social media.

It also urged the UN Security Council and the international community “to address with utmost seriousness and concern” the contents of the report.

“This signifies that the Israeli occupation is proceeding to destroy all aspects and components of human life in the Gaza Strip and committing the crime of using starvation as a weapon in the war against Palestinian civilians.”

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia expressed concern after the IPC’s famine report and said that the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza “will remain a stain on the international community”.

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The situation in Gaza “is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It urged that the UN Security Council “quickly intervene immediately to end the famine and stop the war of genocide and crimes committed by Israel against Palestine”.

Kuwait

Kuwait has denounced the “policy of starvation, oppression, and displacement” pursued by Israel against civilians in Gaza.

The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Israel’s policy is “in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law”, as well as UN Security Council resolutions and in disregard of relevant international legitimacy resolutions.

Kuwait also called on the international community and the Security Council to take action “to allow the urgent entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, to halt the genocide being perpetrated against the brotherly Palestinian people, and to hold the occupying power accountable for the crimes it commits against humanity”.

Gulf Cooperation Council

Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, stressed the need for immediate action by the international community to pressure Israel to open the crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza without restrictions.

In a statement on Friday, Albudaiwi pointed out that the official declaration of famine in the Gaza Strip by the IPC, which has reached catastrophic levels, “clearly reflects the dangerous, inhumane, and illegal starvation policies pursued by the Israeli occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip”.

United Kingdom

The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the famine in Gaza as a “moral outrage” and a “man-made catastrophe”, after it was declared by the IPC.

“The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable,” Lammy said in a statement.

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

Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Israel must meet the basic needs of Gaza’s civilians for food, water and medicine, following Friday’s “devastating and entirely foreseeable” IPC report.

“Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met, using all the resources it has available,” the ICRC said in a statement, adding that the famine declaration “must serve as a catalyst for immediate and concrete action.”

Oxfam

Oxfam said the IPC’s declaration of a famine in Gaza City confirms what the charity and its partners have been witnessing for months, and has called for aid to be immediately allowed into the territory.

“The famine in Gaza is entirely driven by Israel’s near-total blockade on food and vital aid, the horrifying consequence of Israel’s violence, and its use of starvation as a weapon of war,” said Helen Stawski, policy lead at Oxfam GB, the global poverty-focused NGO’s British arm.

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“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.”

She said that Oxfam had more than $3.3m worth of aid, including high-calorie food packages, sitting in warehouses outside Gaza.

“Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever,” she said.

Islamic Relief

The IPC’s confirmation of famine in Gaza “brings shame on the entire world”, said humanitarian charity Islamic Relief.

“Every day our team there sees more people starving to death and children turning into living skeletons before our eyes,” the NGO said in a statement.

“Many more will die unless the world acts now.”

CAIR

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Friday’s findings of famine in northern Gaza must push US President Donald Trump and the US Congress to end Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.

“This famine is not a natural disaster – it is the intended outcome of Israel’s brutal blockade, targeted destruction of food systems, and systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid. For months, international aid organizations have sounded the alarm,” CAIR wrote on X.

Mercy Corps

The chief executive officer of the US-based aid group, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, called the UN announcement of a famine in Gaza City “absolutely horrifying, yet not surprising”.

“This is the direct result of months of deliberate restrictions on aid, the destruction of Gaza’s food, health and water systems, and relentless bombardment. This is a man-made catastrophe, entirely preventable and entirely unconscionable,” she said.

McKenna said Mercy Corps staff were facing dire conditions.

“We’re watching our own team members waste away. They’re standing in food lines, skipping meals so their children can eat, and risking their lives daily just to find bread and water,” she noted.

08/22/2025 August 22, 2025 Dutch foreign minister quits after Israel sanctions stalemate

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned his post after a cabinet meeting failed to agree on sanctions against Israel.

“I see that I am insufficiently able to take meaningful additional measures to increase pressure on Israel,” Veldkamp told Dutch news agency ANP after the meeting.

The minister said the steps he had proposed were “seriously discussed” but encountered resistance in successive cabinet meetings.

But his colleagues from two parties, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB), refused to take further action against Israel, Dutch media reported.

“I feel constrained in setting the course I consider necessary as foreign minister,” Veldkamp said.

The Netherlands was among 21 countries that signed a joint declaration on Thursday condemning Israel’s approval of a major West Bank settlement project as “unacceptable and contrary to international law.”