GAZA — A United Nations-backed global hunger monitor has officially declared a famine for the first time in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, as Israel continues to block aid from entering the war-torn enclave. Aid organisations and world leaders have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Here’s how the world reacts to the IPC findings:
Palestine
Palestinian group Hamas called for an immediate end to the war and the lifting of the Israeli siege on the territory after the UN declared a famine in parts of Gaza.
In a statement, the group called for “immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege” and demanded that crossings be opened “without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel”.
The group went on to say that the declaration by the UN has confirmed the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and accused Israel of using starvation as a “tool of war”.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said the IPC report and comments from UN officials confirm that famine in Gaza is now “a proven fact” that may amount to war crimes.
The reality in Gaza is even more grave and catastrophic than depicted in the UN-backed report, the office said in a statement, calling on the international community to intervene.
It said Israel’s own data on allowing several dozen trucks of aid into Gaza on average during the past weeks show that the volume going in is much lower than what’s needed by the famine-stricken population in the enclave. The figures “incriminate, not exonerate” Israeli authorities, the office added.
The statement said the technical terms used in the IPC report indicate that famine is now “a fact that cannot be manipulated” by Israel or its allies, and that “any state or organisation that turns a blind eye to this crime becomes complicit in its continuation and falls under the scope of international law”.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the IPC report “closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine”.
“It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence in all its forms and dimensions to immediately halt the famine and the aggression against our people,” it said in a statement.
It also urged the UN Security Council and the international community “to address with utmost seriousness and concern” the contents of the report.
UN
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza’s famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.
“Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival,” Guterres said. “People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing.”
The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has “unequivocal obligations” under international law, including the duty to ensure that food and medical supplies are made available to the population of Gaza.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has highlighted that “months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears”, but now that the famine is confirmed in Gaza City and the surrounding areas, it is “time for political will” to end it.
“We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity,” he said. “No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow – it is now.”
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that the emergence of famine in northern Gaza is the “direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government” and added that deaths from starvation might amount to a war crime.
“The famine declared today in Gaza Governorate by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” Turk said in a statement to reporters, referring to the IPC report.
“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 added.
The famine in Gaza should “haunt us all” and was entirely preventable had the United Nations not been systematically prevented from bringing in food, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva.
“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”
Amnesty International
“This famine is the direct consequence of Israel’s deliberate campaign of starvation in Gaza,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said in a statement.
She said the IPC’s famine declaration is “a scathing indictment of the failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip”.
“The deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, and the direct killings of civilians are a clear manifestation of how Israel is inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza as part of its ongoing genocide,” she said.
“History will never forgive us for standing by as emaciated children die, while food remains just miles away, yet blocked by Israel.”
Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Israel must meet the basic needs of Gaza’s civilians for food, water and medicine, following Friday’s “devastating and entirely foreseeable” IPC report.
“Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met, using all the resources it has available,” the ICRC said in a statement, adding that the famine declaration “must serve as a catalyst for immediate and concrete action.”
Oxfam
Oxfam said the IPC’s declaration of a famine in Gaza City confirms what the charity and its partners have been witnessing for months, and has called for aid to be immediately allowed into the territory.
“The famine in Gaza is entirely driven by Israel’s near-total blockade on food and vital aid, the horrifying consequence of Israel’s violence, and its use of starvation as a weapon of war,” said Helen Stawski, policy lead at Oxfam GB, the global poverty-focused NGO’s British arm.
“Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition and disease.”
She said that Oxfam had more than $3.3m worth of aid, including high-calorie food packages, sitting in warehouses outside Gaza.
“Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever,” she said.
CAIR
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Friday’s findings of famine in northern Gaza must push US President Donald Trump and the US Congress to end Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.
“This famine is not a natural disaster – it is the intended outcome of Israel’s brutal blockade, targeted destruction of food systems, and systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid. For months, international aid organizations have sounded the alarm,” CAIR wrote on X.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia expressed concern after the IPC’s famine report and said that the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza “will remain a stain on the international community”.
The situation in Gaza “is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation”, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It urged that the UN Security Council “quickly intervene immediately to end the famine and stop the war of genocide and crimes committed by Israel against Palestine”.
Kuwait
Kuwait has denounced the “policy of starvation, oppression, and displacement” pursued by Israel against civilians in Gaza.
The country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israel’s policy is “in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law”, as well as UN Security Council resolutions and in disregard of relevant international legitimacy resolutions.
Kuwait also called on the international community and the Security Council to take action “to allow the urgent entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, to halt the genocide being perpetrated against the brotherly Palestinian people, and to hold the occupying power accountable for the crimes it commits against humanity”.
Gulf Cooperation Council
Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, stressed the need for immediate action by the international community to pressure Israel to open the crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza without restrictions.
In a statement on Friday, Albudaiwi pointed out that the official declaration of famine in the Gaza Strip by the IPC, which has reached catastrophic levels, “clearly reflects the dangerous, inhumane, and illegal starvation policies pursued by the Israeli occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip”.
United Kingdom
The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the famine in Gaza as a “moral outrage” and a “man-made catastrophe”, after it was declared by the IPC.
“The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable,” Lammy said in a statement.
“The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.” — QNN
