Gaza: the record ·
Famine in Gaza: what the IPC found
In August 2025, the world's food security authority confirmed famine in Gaza City. It was the first famine ever confirmed in the Middle East, and it was caused by people, not by drought.
What the IPC is
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the global standard used by the UN, governments and aid agencies to measure hunger. Famine, Phase 5, is its highest level, declared only when strict thresholds for food deprivation, child malnutrition and deaths are met.
The finding
On 22 August 2025, the IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City, the first famine ever confirmed in the Middle East. It projected that famine would spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. UN officials called it a man-made famine.
How it happened
Months of restrictions on aid, the total blockade from March to May 2025, the destruction of farmland, bakeries and water systems, and attacks on people seeking food left Gaza's population unable to feed itself.
A war crime
The International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant include the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.
Watch NAZA
NAZA is Israeli military slang for collateral damage: the number of civilians an officer is allowed to kill in a strike. In this documentary, 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, many from the army's most prestigious units, explain how that number was set, approved and exceeded in Gaza. What they describe is not a tragic accident of war but a system: targets tracked to their family homes, families watched for days, strikes approved knowing children were inside.
In cinemas now, and free worldwide on theguardian.com after the cinema run.
