Gaza no longer in famine but hunger levels remain critical, UN says | Gaza
The famine in Gaza has ended as a result of increased humanitarian aid deliveries to the region, the UN said on Friday, but warned that hunger levels and the humanitarian situation remained critical.
The UN stated that almost one in eight people in Gaza still faces food shortages, and that persistent hunger has worsened due to winter floods and cold weather. Most people in Gaza live in tents or substandard housing as Israel destroyed much of the housing and civilian infrastructure during its two-year war.
Since the October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Israel has partially eased restrictions on aid entry, but aid remains limited and inconsistent, the UN said.
“No area is classified as famine,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, which the UN uses to track food crises. The IPC first declared famine in parts of Gaza in August, after Israel’s restriction of food aid to the region led to mass starvation and at least 450 people starved to death, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The watchdog said that despite the end of famine classification, the situation in Gaza was still dire and “the entire Gaza Strip is classified as an emergency.” According to the IPC’s five-stage classification system, the emergency stage is just one step below famine and occurs when households experience “very high levels of acute malnutrition and excess mortality” due to lack of food.
Before the ceasefire, Israel was seriously blockading aid access to Gaza. defined as “Israel’s systematic obstruction” by Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs in August.
After a US-brokered ceasefire took effect in October, Israel began allowing more aid from the UN and its partners to enter.
“Following the ceasefire… the latest IPC analysis shows significant improvements in food security and nutrition compared to the August 2025 analysis that identified famine,” the IPC said.
Aid workers said the agreement remained fragile as Israel launched almost daily attacks on the area and both sides leveled accusations of ceasefire violations.
About 1.6 million people are expected to face “crisis” levels of hunger in the next four months, the IPC said, warning that the strip could fall into famine again if the ceasefire is broken.
Israel has vehemently denied accusations that there is a famine in Gaza and that it is restricting aid access. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a post on X on Friday that “in the face of overwhelming and conclusive evidence, even the IPC was forced to admit that there is no famine in Gaza.”
Cogat, Israel’s body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, said the IPC report “paints a distorted, biased and unfounded picture of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”
The humanitarian community and the UN widely recognize the famine in Gaza, and the IPC is considered the global authority on food crises.
Oxfam said hunger in Gaza remained “appalling” and accused Israel of preventing humanitarian groups from bringing aid to the area. “Oxfam alone has $2.5 million worth of aid, including 4,000 food packages sitting in warehouses just across the border. Israeli authorities deny all of this,” Nicolas Vercken, Oxfam France’s director of campaigns and advocacy, said in a statement.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still resisting the heavy rain and cold in worn-out tents. Photos of campsites flooded at the beginning of winter circulated on social media. The threat of disease outbreaks remains high, as hygienic conditions in crowded tent settlements are below average.
A 29-day-old baby died of hypothermia on Wednesday, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. “Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic needs to survive,” said Bilal Abu Saada, head of the care team at Nasser hospital, who received the baby before he died.
The ceasefire remains fragile, with negotiators still unable to bridge the differences needed to advance to the second phase of a deal that would lead to a lasting peace.
According to reports in the Israeli media, US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff will meet with senior Qatari, Egyptian and Turkish officials in Miami on Friday to discuss how to proceed with the second part of the ceasefire agreement.
In the second phase, Israel is expected to withdraw from the 53 percent of Gaza it still controls, an interim authority will come to power in place of Hamas, and an international stabilization force will be deployed to the region.
Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani warned on Thursday that delays in moving to the second phase of the deal, as well as ceasefire violations, would “endanger the entire process.”
