Half a million Gazans face ‘catastrophic food insecurity’, UN-backed report finds

Starvation threat looms for 2.1 million people amid lack of aid to enclave

Displaced children receive food in Khan Younis. The World Food Programme has warned of the growing threat of hunger in southern Gaza. AFP

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About half a million people in Gaza face "catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity" as aid deliveries dwindle, a UN-backed report said.

The latest findings from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, conducted from May 27 to June 4, said about 495,000 people – 22 per cent of the enclave's population – are experiencing the highest level of starvation, known as IPC Phase 5.

The report said about 2.1 million people, or 96 per cent of the population of Gaza, will face high levels of acute food insecurity through to September.

The UN-backed agency projected previously that famine would occur in northern Gaza by the end of May, but it said an increase in food and aid deliveries in March and April "temporarily alleviated conditions in the northern governorates".

"In this context, the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring," said the IPC report, released on Tuesday.

But the Israeli offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, has contributed to worsening conditions in the besieged enclave in recent weeks, said the IPC, which was established in 2004 during the famine in Somalia.

"The humanitarian space in the Gaza Strip continues to shrink and the ability to safely deliver assistance to populations is dwindling. The recent trajectory is negative and highly unstable," the report added.

In May, the Rafah crossing on the border between Gaza and Egypt was closed, reducing humanitarian access to the nearly two million people sheltering in the south of the enclave.

The displacement of people to areas of Gaza with less water and limited health services "increases the risk of disease outbreaks, which would have catastrophic effects on the nutritional and health status of large segments of the population", the report said.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, said humanitarian assistance must be scaled up across Gaza.

"As the latest IPCC report makes alarmingly clear, humanitarian needs inside Gaza are catastrophic," she told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. "And humanitarian assistance must be scaled up and reach all in need across all of Gaza.

"With much of Gaza's population facing catastrophic levels of hunger, the situation is at risk of worsening rapidly, especially with sustained disruptions in aid flows."

The Gaza war began after the Hamas-led attack on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. The retaliatory bombardment has killed more than 37,600 Palestinians, health authorities in Gaza said.

The conflict has destroyed most of the enclave's capacity to produce its own food and the UN's World Food Programme said the latest IPC report "paints a stark picture of ongoing hunger".

Humanitarian organisations are struggling to help those in need in southern Gaza, the WFP said. "Hostilities in Rafah in May displaced more than a million people and severely limited humanitarian access," the agency added in a statement.

"Meanwhile, the security vacuum has fostered lawlessness and disorder, which severely hamper humanitarian operations."

It said it feared southern Gaza could soon be gripped by the same levels of hunger recorded in the north.

"The improvement shows the difference that greater access can make. Increased food deliveries to the north and nutrition services have helped to reduce the very worst levels of hunger, leaving a still desperate situation," the WFP said.

Oxfam also responded to the report with a call for a ceasefire and the movement of aid into Gaza.

“Each day without a ceasefire, more lives will be lost. The clock is ticking. World leaders must increase pressure on all parties to agree to a permanent ceasefire, and on Israel to stop starving Palestinian children to death, by allowing sufficient humanitarian aid to reach them," Oxfam said in a statement.

“Israel must ensure that movement of aid into and within Gaza, including through checkpoints, is predictable, unfettered and dramatically accelerated, with all roads operational, the entry of sufficient fuel allowed, and access safely facilitated."