Conditions are expected to worsen by September, IPC global initiative says, with Palestinians in Gaza facing a ‘race against time’.
Famine is occurring in the northern Gaza Strip and is projected to spread to central and southern areas by the end of September, a global hunger monitor has warned.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative said on Friday that famine was occurring in the Gaza governorate, a region where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in northern Gaza, and that it was likely to reach the central region of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza by the end of next month.
After 22 months of conflict, more than half a million people are facing famine (IPC Phase 5), a catastrophic situation characterised by starvation, acute malnutrition, and mortality, it said. Another 1.07 million people – 54 percent of the population – are facing emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in crisis (IPC Phase 3).
Conditions are expected to further worsen between mid-August and the end of September 2025, with famine projected to expand to the central Deir el-Balah and southern Khan Younis areas.
By the end of this period, almost a third of the population of Gaza – nearly 641,000 people – is expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while the number of people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely increase to 1.14 million, or some 58 percent of the population.
This marks the most severe deterioration since the IPC partnership – which comprises 21 organisations including UN agencies, NGOs, technical agencies and regional bodies – began analysing acute food insecurity and acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip.
It also marks the first time a famine has been officially confirmed in Gaza.
A race against time
The IPC global initiative described the situation as “a race against time”, adding that “famine must be stopped at all costs”.
It warned that acute malnutrition was projected to continue worsening “rapidly”.
At least 132,000 children under the age of five will be at risk of death from acute malnutrition by June 2026, it said. This number has doubled compared with the IPC estimates reported in May 2025.
This includes at least 41,000 severe cases at heightened risk of death.
Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will require an urgent nutrition response, the IPC initiative added.
Jeanette Bailey, a child nutrition lead at the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based aid organisation, said Gaza was “seeing the worst possible humanitarian catastrophe that we can even measure”.
There are “going to be a lot more children dying, a lot more pregnant and lactating women suffering from malnutrition”, she said.
Israel does not accept that there is widespread malnutrition among Palestinians in Gaza and disputes the hunger fatality figures, arguing that the deaths are due to other medical causes.
Ahead of the report’s release, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, preemptively attacked its findings. “You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilised Hamas savages,” he wrote on X.
“Maybe the over fed terrorists could share some of their warehouse full they stole with hungry people especially the hostages”.
Israel has been insisting that Hamas is starving the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza, some of whom appeared emaciated in recent footage released by the Palestinian group. It continues to deny what aid agencies and governments are saying is the man-made starvation it is forcing on Gaza.
Israel has severely restricted aid entering Gaza since March. At GHF aid distribution sites, under the control of the Israeli military and private US contractors, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid.
Amnesty International, among other human rights groups, has accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza and of “systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life”.
