'Worst-case scenario' of famine unfolding in Gaza, watchdog warns, as war death toll passes 60,000

The worst-case scenario of famine is rapidly unfolding in Gaza, a global hunger monitor warned on Tuesday as the Palestinian death toll from Israel's war in the territory crossed 60,000.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued an alert over the rise in hunger-related deaths in the enclave, saying that access to food and other essentials has plummeted to unprecedented low levels.

“Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip,” the IPC said in a report. “Immediate action must be taken to allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering,” it added.

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The IPC's alert over the dire situation in Gaza has been echoed by other humanitarian organisations. On Tuesday, David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), issued a “stark warning” over deteriorating conditions in the strip.

“The images, testimonies, and statistics from Gaza leave no room for doubt … what we are witnessing is a man-made catastrophe unfolding in real time,” wrote Mr Miliband in a statement. “Children in Gaza are not just hungry; they are starving to death … In the coming days, thousands of Gaza’s children will either be rescued – or allowed to die. That is the choice before us,” he continued.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) also warned on Tuesday that the disaster unfolding in Gaza was “unlike anything we have seen in this century”. Faced with mounting international alarm over the situation, Israel said at the weekend its military would observe “tactical pauses” to allow the delivery of food to Gaza. However, the WFP says none of the supplies entering Gaza reached the agency's warehouses, from where they are sent out for distribution.

“We have not had any trucks make it to the warehouse on July 27; yesterday – July 28 – nothing went through,” a WFP official told The National. “All trucks that went out on July 27 were offloaded en route. We believe it is hungry civilians [who are] desperate and do not trust the system and that they will be able to get anything through distributions.”

On Monday, the US President Donald Trump admitted for the first time that children in Gaza are suffering “real starvation”, amid mounting international criticism of Israel's actions in the strip. “That’s real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can’t fake that,” Mr Trump said. “We have to get the kids fed.”

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His statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that starvation is happening in the Palestinian territory. “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza,” he claimed in a speech.

The IPC defines famine as a situation in which “at least one in five households have an extreme lack of food and face starvation and destitution, resulting in extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death”. Its assessments are a critical tool used by the international community to identify and tackle famine conditions worldwide.

In an analysis published in May, the IPC had projected that the entire population of the Gaza Strip would face high levels of acute food insecurity by September, including half a million people facing catastrophe levels, characterised by an extreme lack of food, starvation, destitution and death. A risk of famine was detected in all areas of the Gaza Strip.

Since then, Israeli aerial bombardment and ground operations have intensified, making people’s access to food across Gaza “alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous”, the IPC said. Between May and July, the proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger has doubled. One in three people have been going without food for days at a time, it said in its report.

More than 3,000 children are severely malnourished in Gaza. Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children under five years old, with at least 16 reported deaths since July 17, according to IPC figures.

The hunger watchdog has also criticised the food distribution mechanism of the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It said distribution sites are located in militarised zones where less than a quarter of the population is located, forcing Palestinians to embark on long, high-risk journeys to collect food items that are not ready to eat and require water and fuel to cook, which are largely unavailable.

Since late May, more than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to access food in Gaza, the majority of them near GHF aid sites, according to the IPC and UN figures.

Israel says it is committed to allowing in aid but says it must control it to prevent it from being stolen by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as a justification for launching the GHF's operations. An internal US government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas of US-provided humanitarian supplies, challenging Israel's claims.

Israel has vowed to continue its military campaign until Hamas's military and governing capabilities in Gaza are destroyed. Israeli attacks have killed at least 60,034 Palestinians since the war began on October 7, 2023, Gaza's health ministry said in its latest update on Tuesday. The number of people injured reached 145,870, it said.

On Sunday, Israel declared a "tactical” pause in military operations in parts of Gaza and promised to open secure routes for aid. It claimed that more than 120 lorryloads of food aid were distributed by the UN and aid agencies in Gaza. However, UN agencies did not confirm the amount of aid, while residents reported supplies being taken from lorries before they reached warehouses.

The International Rescue Committee has warned that limited “tactical pauses”, air drops and other symbolic gestures are “dangerously inadequate in the face of Gaza’s accelerating hunger crisis”.

“With child deaths from malnutrition surging and famine conditions prevalent, to be meaningful, any halt in fighting must end Israel’s near-total blockade and allow sustained, large-scale aid and commercial supplies through safe land routes. Fuel, food, clean water and electricity must reach all areas of Gaza – brief pauses won’t cut it,” the IRC said.