Gaza City officially enters famine on the eve of the Israeli army invasion

Famine is now official in the Gaza Strip. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international system supported by United Nations agencies that assesses food situations worldwide, declared on Friday that famine has reached Gaza City and the other municipalities and refugee camps that make up Gaza Governorate. The IPC report comes on the eve of an offensive in which the Israeli army intends to expel the one million Gazans concentrated in Gaza City — maneuvers that humanitarian organizations have warned would have catastrophic consequences.

According to this report, 514,000 people — almost a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza — are suffering from famine. The figure is expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. It is the first time the IPC has declared famine outside the African continent. Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, dismissed the IPC investigation as “tailor-made” to fit “Hamas’s fake campaign” about hunger in Gaza. “There is no famine in Gaza,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“It is a famine within a few hundred meters of food, in a fertile land,” said Tom Fletcher, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, in a statement. “It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war,” continued the British diplomat.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, meanwhile, stated that the declaration of famine “is not a mystery.” “It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment and a failure of humanity itself,” the Portuguese leader shared on X. “Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing. As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law — including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population."

The IPC investigation calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to stop the spread of famine to other parts of the enclave, which it warns will occur “in the coming weeks” in Deir al-Balah (center) and Khan Younis (south), if the situation on the ground does not change.

The IPC classifies famine in territories where 20% of households face extreme food shortages, 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and the hunger-related death rate exceeds two adults or four children per day per 10,000 inhabitants. It is also considered official when at least two of these criteria are met.

Conditions to prevent the invasion

Meanwhile, Israel continues moving forward with plans to launch an assault and ground invasion of Gaza City. On Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to destroy the city — the largest Palestinian municipality — if Hamas rejects the main conditions Israel is demanding to end the war: the disarmament of the militia and the release of all captives.

Katz issued this warning in the same statement in which he announced that Israel’s top leaders had approved, on Thursday night, the plans “to take control of Gaza City and defeat Hamas,” referring to the operation Israel has been preparing for two weeks to occupy the entirety of Gaza City, the largest municipality and the capital of Gaza.

“Soon, the gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamas’s murderers and rapists in Gaza,” declared the Israeli minister on social media. If Palestinian fighters do not accept Israel’s conditions to end the war, Gaza City “will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” he said — an open admission of the widespread destruction the Israeli army has inflicted on those municipalities through massive bombardments.

According to Katz, Israel’s new plans for the enclave follow the same path, since they include “intense fire, evacuation of residents, and maneuvering.”

On Thursday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu puzzled both Israelis and Palestinians by announcing that he had instructed officials to resume negotiations for the release of all captives. The statement marked the first reference by the Israeli government to talks on a ceasefire since Hamas approved a ceasefire proposal on Monday, which four days later the Israeli cabinet has yet to officially address.

Even so, Netanyahu insisted that the offensive against Gaza City would continue until Hamas accepts peace on Israel’s terms, which include the disarmament of the militia, the demilitarization of the enclave, the release of the captives, Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of a civil administration unconnected to either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

One million civilians are precariously concentrated in Gaza City. Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that their forced displacement to the south, as Israel intends, would have catastrophic consequences. Israel is ignoring those warnings. On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it had instructed health authorities and humanitarian workers to prepare to leave Gaza City and move south.

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