Gaza’s Famine: The World Watches Starvation as a Weapon of War

By Vivian Yee, The New York Times (Aug. 22, 2025) — Reflections and Analysis

It is now official: Gaza City and its surrounding areas are in famine.
Not “at risk of famine.” Not “approaching famine.” But famine itself — starvation, acute malnutrition, and death.

At least half a million people in Gaza Governorate are enduring the most extreme conditions that the world’s top hunger monitoring group — the U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (I.P.C.) — measures. With rare exceptions, the other two million residents of Gaza are also suffering severe hunger.

The report is unambiguous: famine in Gaza is entirely man-made.
It is not drought. It is not nature. It is the direct result of Israel’s blockade of food and aid, relentless bombardment, and the collapse of healthcare, water, and agriculture.

“The time for debate and hesitation has passed. Starvation is present and is rapidly spreading.” — I.P.C. Report

By September, famine is expected to engulf two more regions — Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. Northern Gaza, too dangerous for monitors to assess, is likely already worse.

A Manufactured Famine

Israel has denied the severity of hunger in Gaza for nearly two years, insisting there is “no starvation.” On Friday, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office went further, calling the famine report “an outright lie” (NYT).

The hunger monitors, however, based their conclusions on robust data: surveys from Gaza’s Health Ministry, WHO, Doctors Without Borders, in-person screenings of children, and aid organizations. They also considered Israeli data.

And the evidence is damning:

Households reporting extreme hunger tripled in Gaza City since May (IPC).
1.1 million children are now at risk, many visibly wasted from acute malnutrition (UNICEF).
Death rates from hunger-related causes have already crossed the famine threshold (NYT).

Even aid groups admit: the food exists. It sits stockpiled at Gaza’s borders — enough to feed every person in the Strip for months. What is missing is not logistics or capacity, but political will.

“We are not facing a logistics, capacity or resource problem. What’s missing is not the ability to respond, but the political will to allow it.” — Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Mercy Corps

Starvation as a Weapon of War

Top U.N. humanitarian official Tom Fletcher was blunt:

“It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war.” — UN OCHA

The numbers are horrifying. But numbers alone cannot capture what famine looks like:

Parents skipping meals for days to let children eat.
Aid trucks swarmed by desperate civilians who must choose between dignity and survival.
A man in Gaza City, Alaa Haddad, 29, recalling the last time he tasted fruit: eight months ago (NYT).

“You become an animal in search of food,” Haddad confessed. “When I go home, I think to myself, ‘What did I just do?’”

This is not just hunger. It is the dehumanization of an entire people.

Global Outrage, Local Obstruction

The I.P.C. declaration is rare. Since 2004, only three other famines have been confirmed: Somalia (2011), South Sudan (2017), and Sudan (2024) (IPC Global History). In Somalia, 100,000 died before famine was officially declared.

Yet even as Gaza’s famine is declared, Israel dismisses the findings as propaganda. Officials accuse the monitors of manipulating methodology, ignoring deaths, and serving Hamas’s narrative.

But the evidence is overwhelming: starvation is not an accident of war — it is being engineered.

What Must Happen Now

The famine in Gaza is not inevitable. It can still be stopped. But that requires:

An immediate cease-fire to allow safe distribution of aid (UN calls).
Unrestricted humanitarian access through borders Israel currently controls.
Political pressure on those enabling this siege to end the weaponization of food.

The world cannot feign ignorance. Gaza’s famine is unfolding in real time — livestreamed on our screens, recorded by international monitors, and confirmed by U.N. experts.

History will not ask whether the world knew.
It will ask: why did the world do nothing while children starved?

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