The alert reveals that the “worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”
Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished, while hospitals report at least 16 hunger-related deaths of children under five since July 17.
Critical deterioration
The IPC alert documents an alarming escalation following the resumption of the Israeli war in Gaza on 18 March 2025.
Since then, "bombardments have intensified and ground operations expanded, with a devastating impact on civilians with nearly 6,700 people killed and critical infrastructure destroyed."
This brought the total death toll since the start of Israel's genocidal war in the strip in October 2023 to nearly 60,000 and the wounded over 150,000, mostly women and children.
The renewed Israeli offensive after 18 March displaced an additional 325,000 people inside Gaza forced since mid-May amid non-stop airstrikes and bombardment.
Most critically, "88 percent of the territory is currently under evacuation orders or within militarised areas," leaving safe spaces virtually non-existent for Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
"People's access to food across Gaza is now alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous," the alert states starkly. The human cost of seeking sustenance has become deadly: "Since 27 May, over 1,000 people were killed while trying to access food in Gaza", with most deaths occurring near militarized food distribution sites.
"Food diversity has collapsed to its worst level since the start of the conflict, triggering both acute and long-term consequences," according to the alert. The situation has deteriorated to the point where "some households are not eating anything for an entire day, those who are eating are often surviving on only basic foods like bread".
Food consumption has reached its lowest levels since the conflict began, with 81 percent of households reporting poor food consumption in July compared to 33 percent in April. Most alarmingly, "Most households (86 percent) reported regularly not having food to eat of any kind and nearly all (96 percent) reported that they went to bed hungry multiple times in the last month".
Humanitarian access denied
Despite the partial resumption of limited aid operations into Gaza last week following an 80-day complete Israeli blockade on the entry of all food, water, and medicine to the strip, humanitarian agencies struggle to deliver aid safely.
The IPC alert describes how "only a trickle of humanitarian assistance, mainly food, has entered the Gaza Strip" despite desperate need.
An estimated minimum of 62,000 metric tons of staple food is required monthly to cover basic needs, yet only 19,900 and 37,800 metric tons entered in May and June respectively.
More alarmingly, only 14 percent of humanitarian assistance that entered Gaza in June reached distribution points, with the remainder lost to looting or security incidents.
The desperation has driven families to extreme measures. "Nearly nine out of ten households resorted to extremely severe coping mechanisms to feed themselves, such as taking significant safety risks to obtain food, and scavenging from the garbage," the alert documents.
Community kitchens, serving as a lifeline for many Gazans, now operate at severely reduced capacity. On July 20, they served only 158,000 meals across Gaza, representing a 30 percent reduction from the previous day and approximately one-third of the daily average in May.
Malnutrition spreading
The deterioration in malnutrition rates has been particularly severe in Gaza City, where "the prevalence of global acute malnutrition based on MUAC soaring from 4.4 percent in May to an alarming 16.5 percent in the first half of July, reaching the Famine threshold". The crisis extends to pregnant and breastfeeding women, with "two-fifths of pregnant and breastfeeding women were acutely malnourished in June".
Over 90 percent of households report experiencing water insecurity as of June 2025, while persistent fuel shortages hamper water purification efforts. Diarrheal diseases account for 39 percent of reported illnesses in July, contributing to the dangerous cycle of malnutrition and disease.
Current stocks of life-saving and preventive nutrition supplies are expected to be fully depleted within a month, according to the alert. The denial of entry for essential supplies, combined with widespread looting, has led to critical shortages that significantly heighten the risk of disease outbreaks across the strip.
Gaza's long road to famine
The current famine represents the culmination of a protracted humanitarian crisis resulting from the 21-month Israeli war on Gaza that devastated the lives of strip’s 2.3 million residents.
The systematic nature of Gaza's food crisis has been documented over the course of the war, with the UN describing the Gaza as "the hungriest place on Earth," with 100 percent of the population at risk of famine last May.
Since mid-May, the US/Israeli so called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), distributed limited amounts of flour to starving Gazans served as a death trap for aid-seekers with Israeli soldiers killing and wounding hundreds of Palestinians near 'aid centers'.
Tens of international aid and human rights organisations have refused to participate in the GHF operation, accusing it of propagating a "militarized distribution system" of aid in Gaza.
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