The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has reported that there is no longer famine in Gaza, but the situation remains critical.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned on X that efforts to avert famine in Gaza remain “extremely fragile”.
The latest assessment by the IPC comes four months after it reported that 514,000 people – nearly a quarter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – were experiencing famine, a finding rejected by Israel.
While the October ceasefire, a proposed peace plan and increased food flows have overcome catastrophic conditions, the IPC has contended that the outlook remains dire.
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It said about 1.6 million Gazans, 77 per cent of the population, face serious food insecurity, and if conditions do not improve more than 100,000 children aged between 6 months and five years could be afflicted with acute malnutrition and require treatment through to mid-October 2026.
A return to war would end deliveries, close markets and halt cultivation of local crops, driving substantial areas in the strip into famine.
Persistent hunger has been combined with winter cold and flooding while displaced Gazans live in tents or makeshift shelters. Israel destroyed or damaged 90 per cent of housing during its two-year war, according to the UN office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA).
Although Israel has partially eased restrictions on the entry of aid since the October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, deliveries remain “limited and inconsistent,” the UN said.
Under the ceasefire deal, 600 trucks carrying supplies were meant to enter Gaza daily, but the average has been far below this figure. In the first week of December, 140 aid trucks a day from UN convoys reached Gaza, UN agencies reported.
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“We still see commercial trucks taking priority over humanitarian goods,” said Franz Luef, emergency co-ordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Gaza. This could explain why goods entering Gaza end up in markets and are too expensive for Gazans.
On her return from a visit to Gaza, director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross, Yasmine Praz Dessimoz wrote that 80 per cent of the trucks entering the Gaza Strip are commercial trucks or government-to-government aid. Humanitarian assistance has increased slightly, but it “remains minimal and far from sufficient”.
She said breastfeeding mothers, older people, and children do not have access to expensive commercial goods.
The Israeli military body Cogat, which controls access to Gaza, has argued that the number of trucks with food aid entering each week go beyond requirements.
“The [IPC] report relies on severe gaps in data collection and on sources that do not reflect the full scope of humanitarian assistance,” Cogat said. The IPC argued its analysis was based on published data from UN sources and Cogat.
