'This must haunt us all': UN declares famine in Gaza after months of Israel's starvation policy

Humanitarian chief says 'systematic obstruction' has led to hundreds of deaths, mostly children, from malnutrition

The UN has declared a famine in Gaza after months of Israeli restrictions that cut off food and water supplies to more than two million people.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced famine in Gaza city, the enclave’s capital and largest urban centre, during a briefing in Geneva on Friday.

The UN report warned the famine would extend to Deir Al Balah in the centre of Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of next month. Malnutrition had already affected more than 132,000 children under the age of five as of June, including 41,000 severe cases, it said.

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"Please read the report cover to cover in sorrow and in anger, not as words and numbers but as names and lives," UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said.

"It's famine on all of our watch. Gaza's famine is the world's famine. It's a famine that asks: 'But what did you do?' A famine that will and must haunt us all."

The announcement comes after months of restrictions to aid deliveries imposed by Israel, which justified its action by accusing Hamas of stealing supplies, without providing proof.

The blockade resulted in severe shortages of food items, including flour, cooking oil, sugar, milk and baby formula, and drove up the cost of existing stocks to several times their normal price, putting them beyond the reach of most of the enclave's two million-plus residents.

"It is a famine that we could've prevented had we been allowed, yet food stacks up at the borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," Mr Fletcher said.

Two year-old Palestinian girl Sham Qudeih suffers from liver enlargement, severe malnutrition and severe abdominal swelling, with her weight having dropped to four kilogrammes. EPA

Israel denied there is a famine, saying the UN's report was biased and ignored recent humanitarian steps. "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The volume of aid delivered through the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, set up to sideline the UN's established aid delivery network, or via aid-drops – the only form of direct assistance Israel has allowed from countries such as Jordan and the UAE – has been too little to sustain the population's needs. The GHF's aid distribution sites have been called "death traps" due to the number of people killed there every day while seeking food – nearly 900, according to the UN's latest figures.

The famine report acknowledges a modest increase in aid entering Gaza this month, but says it is "largely insufficient" to address extreme food shortages. Israel controls entry and exit to the strip.

At least 222 people have starved to death in Gaza since Israel began its war in the territory in October 2023, most of them children, with the majority of deaths reported in recent weeks.

"It is a famine that strips people of dignity before it strips them of life," Mr Fletcher said. "It forces parents to choose which child to feed, and forces them to risk their lives to seek food."

Israel has faced repeated accusations of using food as a weapon. Several Israeli politicians have openly argued that restricting the entry of supplies is a legitimate strategy.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global hunger monitor involving UN agencies, NGOs and governments, reported last month that famine was unfolding in Gaza.

Following the UN report's release, Palestine's Foreign Ministry said there is no room left for "interpretation and speculation" about the prevalence of famine in Gaza. It called for international action to stop Israeli crimes of "genocide, displacement and annexation".

Tens of thousands of people are at risk of dying without the massive entry of aid and medicine for those already facing malnutrition, experts have told The National.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Israel has continued to deny the widespread malnutrition and hunger among civilians in Gaza.

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"We are seeing the worst possible humanitarian catastrophe that we can even measure," said Jeanette Bailey, a child nutrition lead at the International Rescue Committee.

"A lot more children [will be] dying, a lot more pregnant and lactating women suffering from malnutrition."

The famine, Mr Fletcher said, is "caused by cruelty justified by revenge, and enabled by indifference and sustained by complicity".

Israel has launched an offensive on Gaza city, where about one million people, or half the entire population, are to be displaced to the already overcrowded south.

Israel's war has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians and injured more than 157,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, since October 2023, when Hamas killed about 1,200 civilians and captured 250 hostages.

A leaked video showed Israel's former military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva saying the death toll of more than 50,000 Palestinians is "vital and required for the next generations".