United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has described the unfolding famine in Gaza as a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment – and a failure of humanity itself.”
Speaking after the release of the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, Guterres said famine was spreading rapidly across the Gaza Strip. “Famine is not about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival,” he warned.
The IPC projects that famine conditions, already confirmed in Gaza City, will expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in the coming weeks. By the end of September, more than 640,000 people are expected to face catastrophic levels of hunger, while another 1.14 million will experience “emergency” food insecurity.
UN agencies have been repeatedly urging Israel to allow full and immediate humanitarian access. “As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law – including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population,” Guterres said. “No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow – it is now.”
The UN also reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages taken on 7 October 2023, and unimpeded humanitarian access. Agencies warned that any further escalation of Israel’s military offensive would have devastating consequences. “Many people – especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities – may be unable to evacuate,” they said in a joint statement.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said the famine could have been prevented. “Food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food, in a fertile land,” he told journalists in Geneva. He added that this was “a 21st century famine watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history.”
UN human rights chief Volker Türk described the famine as the “direct result” of Israeli government policies. “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 willful killing,” he said, urging Israel to allow aid into Gaza immediately.
The report marks the first time an official famine has been declared in the Middle East. UN data shows that malnutrition among children is worsening at record speed, with more than 12,000 children acutely malnourished in July alone – six times higher than at the start of the year.
With nearly all farmland in Gaza destroyed or inaccessible and nine in ten people repeatedly displaced from their homes, UN officials warned the crisis will “haunt the world.” As Fletcher put it: “It is the world’s famine. A famine that asks, ‘But what did you do?’”
