Amman, Jordan, July 29, 2025 — The International Rescue Committee (IRC) says,
“The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) alert –the global system for assessing the severity of hunger and malnutrition—confirms that famine thresholds have now been surpassed in Gaza City and that the worst-case scenario is unfolding across much of the Gaza Strip. It is a devastating but entirely predictable confirmation of what the IRC and the wider humanitarian community have long warned: Israel’s restrictions on aid have created the conditions for famine, and the window to prevent mass death is rapidly closing.
“IPC Level 5 indicates catastrophic levels of food insecurity, where starvation, acute malnutrition, and mortality are widespread. The latest data indicate that these thresholds are being met for food consumption in most of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City. The consequences of acute malnutrition on children under 5, should they survive, can be lifelong and irreversible. It is already too late for hundreds of children who have starved to death.
“This is not a crisis that can be met with half-measures. Only full, safe, and sustained humanitarian access granted immediately—through land routes, at scale—can avert a catastrophic loss of life.
“Airdrops and brief humanitarian pauses offer only symbolic relief and cannot meet the scale or urgency of need. The evidence of widespread hunger, untreated malnutrition, and rising mortality has been visible for weeks. As starvation spreads, families, including IRC staff themselves, are surviving on lentil water, wild herbs, or nothing at all. Children are too weak to seek help, their bodies slowly shutting down from lack of food.
“It bears repeating that by the time famine is formally declared, people have already died. The evidence of widespread hunger, untreated malnutrition, and rising mortality has been visible for weeks. What is needed now is immediate action to flood Gaza with aid.”