Gaza is facing a critical risk of famine, food security experts have warned, ten weeks after Israel imposed a strict blockade on the Palestinian territory, cutting off all supplies including food, medicine, shelter and fuel. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed consortium of independent specialists, said on Monday that there had been a major deterioration in the food security situation since its last assessment in October 2024.
The IPC stated that goods indispensable for survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks, with the entire population experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. Half a million people, one in five, are facing starvation. The blockade was imposed in early March after the first phase of a ceasefire ended, and a new wave of Israeli attacks definitively ended the truce in late March.
Aid workers in Gaza reported that prices for essentials have risen further, warehouses are empty, and humanitarian teams treating malnourished children are being forced to divide rations between two patients to give both a chance of survival. Jonathan Crickx, a Unicef spokesperson in southern Gaza, said that stocks brought in during the ceasefire are running very low and that more than 11,000 children have been treated since the beginning of the year, with fears of more deaths in coming weeks.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization separately warned of an imminent risk of famine, calling for the immediate lifting of the blockade. Israeli officials say the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the 59 hostages held since October 2023. Meanwhile, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing offensive, and swaths of Gaza have been reduced to rubble.
The IPC found that from 1 April to 10 May, 244,000 people were in the most critical food security situation, classified as level five, or catastrophe/famine. The consortium has rarely declared famine, having done so only in Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020.
