Famine in Gaza: Emergency Directors from FAO, WFP and UNICEF | Press Conference | United Nations

“We are in a race against time,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as UN agencies briefed on the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis confirming famine conditions in Gaza. Paulsen said the findings lay out “the scale, the nature, and the magnitude of the famine unfolding.” According to the IPC report, more than half a million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic deprivation and “over one million people, some 54 per cent of the population, are facing what's classified as Emergency Phase Four. By the end of September, famine is projected to further expand to the Governorates of Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis,” Paulsen noted. Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of the WFP’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Service, said the confirmation reflects extreme conditions. “What we have is extreme food deprivation, widespread acute malnutrition, and starvation-related deaths, and that should all make us pause,” he said. “When a famine is confirmed, it also means that we're not just in an extreme food crisis. It means we've crossed the tipping point,” Bauer added. “We're not in a mathematical problem where we can say that X money or X million dollars or Y trucks will solve this problem. The problem becomes much more complex, especially in the case of the exponentially rising number of people facing malnutrition.” He highlighted the rarity of such declarations. “Since the IPC itself was created more than 20 years ago, this is only the fifth time that there has been a famine confirmation. There was one in 2011 in Somalia, 2017 in South Sudan, 2020 in South Sudan again, and then in 2024 in Sudan,” Bauer said. “So, this is a historic moment; we also have two concurrent famines – Gaza and Sudan. To have two famines at the same time, that's something that's absolutely unprecedented. What this also constitutes is the first famine that has been confirmed in the Middle East.” The situation is particularly grave for children, a UNICEF official warned. “Within this humanitarian emergency in Gaza, there's a real child survival crisis,” said Samir Elhawary, Acting Deputy Director of Emergency Programs at UNICEF. “We see malnutrition accelerating at a catastrophic pace, and for many, far too many children, it's already too late.” Elhawary said aid restrictions had long been pushing children into extreme food poverty. “The signs were unmistakable: children with wasted bodies, too weak to cry or to eat; babies dying of hunger and preventable disease; and parents arriving at clinics without enough food to feed their children.” He added that the numbers continue to surge. “Last month alone, approximately 13,000 children in Gaza were identified as acutely malnourished,” Elhawary said. “That's the highest monthly figure ever recorded since the beginning of the war, and it's a six-fold increase since the beginning of this year.”


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