After weeks of rising concern about hunger in Gaza, a United Nations-backed panel has declared that famine is underway in northern Gaza, warning that more than half a million people are on the brink of starvation as hunger spreads deeper into the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed on Friday that famine has taken hold in the Gaza Governorate, encompassing Gaza City and nearby areas, and warned it could extend to central and southern Gaza by late September.
The declaration comes nearly two years into an armed conflict with Israel that was triggered by the October 7 invasion by Hamas. Israeli restrictions have limited the flow of food and aid into Gaza. Israel has long disputed claims about food insecurity in Gaza.
World Food Programme's Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Jean-Martin Bauer noted that when a famine is declared, it means there is documentation of widespread starvation, widespread illness and widespread mortality.
But the declaration of famine is a complicated process.
Here are five key points about the steps leading up to such a declaration.
There's a very specific, internationally-agreed upon system for gauging hunger crises
The system the world relies on to track food emergencies began in the 1980s, said Tim Hoffine, now Deputy Chief of Party-Innovation at the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). In response to famines in East and West Africa, U.S. aid officials realized the need for a way to monitor global hunger. The goal, Hoffine said, was to provide "independent, timely and evidence-based analysis" to help decision makers prevent future famines.
That led to the founding in 1985 of FEWS NET by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to contract experts to collect and analyze data on at-risk areas monthly.
Still, there was no universal standard to define the severity of hunger crises — making coordination among donors and aid groups difficult.
As former World Food Programme spokesperson Steve Taravella put it, "There is a serious need for the aid community to understand the levels of hunger in a scientific, authoritative way ... We needed something reliable and authoritative that everybody working on these issues could use as a baseline."
So in 2004, during a food emergency in Somalia, FEWS NET and international partners developed the "Integrated Food Security Phase Classification" initiative — or IPC.
"It's a mouthful of humanitarian jargon," Taravella said, "but it's basically the authoritative, respected, scientific mechanism for measuring levels of hunger in different areas."
The IPC is coordinated by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome but brings together working groups of experts to analyze each crisis individually.
"Donors wanted a single estimate of need," Hoffine said. "And the IPC responded to that desire for consensus."
Multiple conditions need to be met before a location is technically considered in "famine"
The IPC categorizes hunger on a five-phase scale. FEWS NET, which monitors hunger hotspots monthly, also uses this system.
Phase one means conditions are normal. In phase two, communities are "stressed" — still eating enough, but many households struggle to afford other essentials.
At phase three — a "crisis" level — "that's where we start getting nervous," Taravella said. People begin to have trouble getting enough food. "They might not have meals as often." Many turn to short-term coping strategies that undermine long-term survival, like selling off livestock.
In phase four — "emergency" — hardships deepen. Food gaps widen, and people resort to "really extreme forms of coping," Hoffine said. That might mean liquidating nearly all assets or eating seeds needed for future planting. Rates of acute malnutrition and excess deaths rise.
Only in phase five is a location considered in "famine." Three criteria must be met: at least 20% of households face "catastrophe," meaning, Hoffine explained, "an extreme lack of food that ... leads to acute malnutrition and mortality."
Second, at least 30% of children under five suffer from acute malnutrition, or wasting. Third, at least two of every 10,000 adults die each day from non-trauma causes. As Hoffine noted, hunger often kills not just through starvation, but by weakening immune systems to the point where people can't fight off disease.
Friday's IPC analysis says Gaza City and surrounding areas are experiencing a Phase 5 famine, the highest level of acute food insecurity.
FEWS NET lacks an operational presence in Gaza, posing potential challenges to monitoring acute food insecurity, but it says its analysis methods remain consistent with its standard project-wide practices.
Some areas in Sudan have been declared to be facing famine conditions since 2024. Parts of South Sudan were declared in famine in 2020 and 2017.
There's an even higher bar for actually declaring a famine
Even if FEWS NET or the IPC determine that a location meets all three famine criteria, they can't declare it on their own. Their findings must be reviewed and approved by a committee of independent experts convened by the IPC.
Still, neither FEWS NET nor the IPC makes the official declaration. "It's up to government institutions, United Nations upper leadership, and other high-level representatives to actually make a famine declaration," Hoffine said.
Starvation can occur long before famine is declared
Because all three thresholds must be met to trigger a famine designation, many people may be starving well before phase five is reached.
"Until famine thresholds are breached, you would still have people dying from hunger or hunger-related mortality," Hoffine explained. "So in Gaza you would still expect there to be mortality. And the longer this goes without a solution, the more that we can expect that sort of mortality to occur."
It's not too late to take action in Gaza — but time is running short
Hoffine and Taravella emphasized the caveats in their organizations' reports are critical. Both FEWS NET and IPC say famine in Gaza can be alleviated if hostilities cease and aid workers are granted full access.
That's the goal of the famine classification system: to alert the world before it's too late. While higher-phase designations don't mandate action, they are powerful tools for mobilizing a response, Taravella said. "It puts the world on notice."
He cited WFP chief economist Arif Husain: "Several years ago, when [famines] happened in certain places, you could say, 'I'm sorry. I did not know.' Today we see crises in real time. So we cannot say we did not know."
Meanwhile, a famine declaration can carry weight, increasing pressure on governments and agencies to ramp up aid and on Israel to allow full humanitarian access. It could also lead to diplomatic fallout.
FEWS NET said in a Friday statement: "Many months of starvation have already resulted in high levels of mortality and left many others so weakened that even with aid, high numbers of deaths will continue for months. This grim reality highlights why early intervention is so essential: Famine can still be slowed, but it should never be allowed to take hold in the first place."
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