The IPC released a report on Friday in which it said that famine was taking place in Gaza City and surrounding towns. It applied the classification to an area home to 514,000 displaced Palestinians – nearly quarter of Gaza’s population.
While the body has previously warned that famine was imminent across Gaza, it had stopped short of making a formal declaration.
The IPC is the globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity.
It is an initiative involving 21 aid organisations, as well as several United Nations agencies. It receives funding from the European Union, the United States, Germany, Britain, Canada and others.
Since its creation in 2004, it has declared five famines. The most recent one was in Sudan last year.
It declares famine if three criteria are met: at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 percent of children are suffering acute malnutrition, and two out of every 10,000 are dying each day due to “outright starvation”.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC said.
“Another 1.07 million people (54 percent) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).”
It added that famine would expand to the areas of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis to the south by the end of September based on current projections.
That would bring the number of people experiencing famine in Gaza to 641,000 people.
In that same timeframe, it projects that the number of people in the “emergency” phase four category would rise from 1.07m to 1.14m.
“The famine declared today in Gaza Governorate by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief stated.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing.”
Israel imposed a near total blockade on the entry of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza on 2 March.
It only began allowing food and aid into the enclave in late May, but almost exclusively through the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
However, aid workers, governments and Palestinians on the ground say the amount of humanitarian relief delivered is nowhere near enough needed to feel Gaza’s population of two million.
Meanwhile, Gaza health officials say that since the GHF took over aid delivery, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid supplies.
The UN and other major international aid groups have refused US and Israeli calls to cooperate with GHF, stating that the organisation violates international humanitarian principles of neutrality.
In recent days, more aid trucks have been allowed by Israeli authorities to enter into Gaza, though far less than what is required to meet the urgent needs of starving Palestinians.
According to the UN, the entire population under five in the Gaza Strip – more than 320,000 children – are at risk of acute malnutrition, due to a lack of safe water, breastmilk substitutes and therapeutic feeding.
Over 270 people have died from malnutrition in Gaza since Israel’s war began in October 2023. That includes at least 112 children.
The IPC said that through to June 2026, at least 132,000 children under five were expected to suffer from acute malnutrition – double the estimate from May this year. That includes 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death.
“Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will also require urgent nutrition response,” it added.
The IPC said on Friday that its analysis only covered Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, adding that it was unable to classify the governorate in northern Gaza due to restrictions of access and a lack of data.
“As this famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report noted.
“The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed.”
It added that if an immediate and sustained ceasefire is not implemented, with access to humanitarian aid and food supplies for everyone in the Gaza Strip, “avoidable deaths will increase exponentially”.
It marks the first time the IPC has classified famine to be taking place outside of Africa.
The previous classifications were Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024.
