The specter of famine hovers northern Gaza

A report prepared with the support of the United Nations on Saturday warned that the specter of famine hangs over areas of the northern Gaza Strip amid escalating shelling, fighting and almost a halt in food aid, at a time when the toll of Israel’s ongoing aggression on the besieged enclave has risen for more than a year.

In its assessment, the Famine Review Committee warned that “the likelihood of famine is imminent and significant, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”

“Famine thresholds may have already been exceeded or will be done soon,” the report said.

On 17 October, the committee predicted that the number of people in Gaza facing food insecurity at a “catastrophic” level would reach 345,000, or 16 per cent of the population, between November and April 2025.

The IPC report classified this as the fifth stage of the classification, a situation in which “famine, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are clearly visible”.