Somoud Wahdan looks at the camera while she and her child wait for trucks of humanitarian aid to arrive in Gaza City, July 25, 2025.

A UN-backed body has officially declared famine in Gaza for the first time, causing outrage around the globe – including within the UK government.

According to a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said 514,000 people in the Palestinian territory are experiencing famine.

That’s approximately a quarter of Gaza’s entire population.

The IPC expect this number to rise to 614,000 by the end of September.

More than half (around 280,000) of those suffering these severe levels of hunger are based in the northern region covering Gaza City, also called the Gaza governorate.

At least 20% of a region has to be suffering from extreme food shortages for it to be called a famine.

It usually means one in three children is acutely malnourished, while a further two in every 10,000 people are dying every day from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The UN human rights agency said today that the famine is a direct result of Israel’s actions and therefore could amount to a war crime.

Famine is not a very common occurrence. Previous famines were declared in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

A new report from Forensic Architecture and the World Peace Foundation also accused Israel of worsening starvation with a “military model” of aid distribution on Friday.

The UK’s foreign secretary David Lammy released a statement today calling the conditions in Gaza a “moral outrage”.

Read Lammy’s full statement here:

“The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable.

The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.

The IPC report makes clear........

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