Starvation in Gaza: How war and blockades lead to famine
Image: Omar Al-Qattaa/ AFP
Imagine tying bricks to your stomach to quiet your hunger. Imagine scrounging for something - anything - to eat, whether it is grass or lentils, just to get by.
Earlier this week, an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) alert confirmed that Gaza is on the brink of famine.
After almost two years of attacks and blockades that resulted in starvation, Gaza experiences the worst-case scenario of famine (IPC AFI Phase 5).
"Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths. Latest data indicate that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City," stated the IPC report.
But what does this mean for Palestinians?
Famine, a term synonymous with widespread suffering and death, is the most extreme classification of food insecurity, known as IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe/Famine) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity scale.
The IPC defines famine as an area-level classification where at least one in five households (20 percent) faces an extreme lack of food, leading to starvation and destitution.
But the IPC can't just classify situations as famine. For an area to be classified as Famine (IPC Phase 5), specific thresholds must be met. 20% of households experiencing an extreme food shortage and destitution.
30% of children acutely malnourished.
A mortality rate of at least 2 deaths per 10,000 people each day, due to outright starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
While common drivers of famine are usually caused by conflict, economic shocks and weather Extremes, this has been described as a man-made famine.
According to the World Food Programme, food consumption has plummeted in Gaza since the last IPC Update in May 2025.
"Data shows that more than one in three people (39 per cent) are now going days at a time without eating," revealed WFP.
'Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,' said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. 'We urgently need safe and sustained humanitarian access and immediate support to restore local food production and livelihoods - this is the only way to prevent further loss of life. The right to food is a basic human right.'
Read that again: People are starving not because food is unavailable. This is worth noting because according to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian civilians are attacked at aid sites. This means that starving people are being shot at while trying to get food.
Israeli forces at sites of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution scheme 'have routinely opened fire on starving Palestinian civilians in acts that amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes,' Human Rights Watch confirmed.
'Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,' said Belkis Wille, HRW associate crisis and conflict director. 'US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.'
According to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, 91 Palestinians seeking aid were killed in the last 24 hours, raising the total number killed to 1,330 and over 8,818 injured, since the end of May when the GHF was launched.
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