{"id":310570,"date":"2025-08-22T12:25:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T16:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=310570"},"modified":"2025-08-22T12:37:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T16:37:38","slug":"wfp-stories-22aug25","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/wfp-stories-22aug25\/","title":{"rendered":"WFP: As famine grips Gaza, families turn to desperate measures to survive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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22 August 2025<\/p>\n

By Nour Hammad<\/p>\n

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Hedaia, holding 18-month-old Mohamed, who has a rare genetic disorder. She says he was a healthy little boy when there was enough food. Photo: WFP\/Ali Jadallah<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Cradling 18-month-old Mohamed in her arms, Hedaia remembers a once-healthy child when food was available – despite Mohamed’s muscular atrophy, a rare genetic weakness. Today, the little boy is skeletal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs milk, diapers and specific foods,\u201d Hedaia said, as her son cried softly. \u201cBut we can\u2019t afford them.\u201d (For their safety, only the first names of Gazan interviewees are being used in this story.)<\/p>\n

Hedaia\u2019s struggle to find food is reflected across Gaza, where\u00a0641,000 people will face catastrophic hunger by the end of September,\u00a0according to figures released today (22 August).<\/p>\n

The Integrated Food Phase Classification, the global standard for measuring food insecurity, has\u00a0confirmed famine\u00a0<\/a>in the Governorate. The IPC has raised its classification to Phase 5, the highest on its scale, where people face \u201ccatastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

An additional 1.14 million people in the territory will be in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and a further 396,000 people in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) conditions.<\/p>\n

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A child called Mariam is treated for severe malnourishment by a WFP partner in Gaza. The IPC projects acute malnutrition will continue worsening rapidly. Photo: WFP\/Ali Jadallah<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The IPC also projected famine would spread southward, reaching the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis Governorates by the end of September. Access restrictions mean there is limited data available for North Gaza Governorate, where \u201cconditions are estimated to be as severe – or worse – than in Gaza Governorate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFamine warnings have been clear for months,\u201d said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. \u201cWhat\u2019s urgently needed now is a surge of aid, safer conditions, and proven distribution systems to reach those most in need – wherever they are. Full humanitarian access and a ceasefire now are critical to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

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People in Gaza Governorate, where famine has been confirmed, wait for food. Photo: WFP\/Jaber Badwan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The IPC findings amount to the first time that famine has been confirmed in the Gaza Strip. They follow four previous IPC warnings issued since November 2023, highlighting the risk of famine. And they come just weeks after the expert body concluded\u00a0two out of three famine thresholds<\/a>\u00a0– plummeting food consumption and soaring acute malnutrition – had been breached.<\/p>\n

Fuelling the crisis are relentless conflict, a collapse of essential services, markets and local food production, and limitations on World Food Programme (WFP) and other agencies\u2019 aid delivery and distribution.\u00a0Only three famines have been declared over the past 15 years<\/a>, including in\u00a0Sudan,\u00a0which is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Restarting distribution key<\/h4>\n

\u201cIf you are elderly, if you are a child under 5, if you are a widow – how, in the current conditions, can you access food?\u201d asked WFP Palestine Country Director Antoine Renard. He and others are calling for flooding Gaza with enough assistance to ensure it reaches all the Strip\u2019s 2 million civilians – the only way, they say, to turn around a catastrophic hunger trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is the political will, the situation can flip from one day to the next,\u201d Renard added. \u201cThere are no logistical issues, no lack of capacity, no lack of funding. The goods are there, ready to serve the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

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WFP Palestine Country Director Antoine Renard (middle) speaks to families in Gaza City during a recent trip to the Strip. Photo: WFP\/Ali Jadallah<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Renard recently returned from a week in Gaza, where he spoke with families fighting starvation. \u201cWhat\u2019s important is to restart the distribution system where we get the food to the right people, and to have bakeries up and running,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially hot meals\u201d \u00a0– now rare in Gaza, as people lack fuel for cooking.<\/p>\n

Since the last IPC analysis in May, the number of children expected to be at severe risk of death from malnutrition by the end of June 2026 has tripled from 14,100 to 43,400. Similarly, for pregnant and breastfeeding women, the number of estimated cases has tripled from 17,000 in May to 55,000 women expected to be suffering from perilous levels of malnutrition by mid-2026. The impact is visible: one in five babies are born prematurely or underweight.<\/p>\n

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A child tested in Gaza presents severe acute malnutrition. The number of acutely manourished children under 5 has soared in the Strip. Photo: WFP\/Jaber Badwan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Today, border crossings are reopened after a complete blockade earlier in the year. But operating conditions inside Gaza are extremely challenging.<\/p>\n

Aid is entering Gaza, but nothing is reaching WFP warehouses or the distribution points run by WFP\u2019s partners. Overall, the amount of food now getting into the Strip only meets a fraction of the enormous needs \u2013 and it is not reaching the most vulnerable people.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people flock to border crossings and wait for convoys, hoping to grab what little assistance arrives. For many, the effort ends in failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have such a level of violence, of despair. People are rushing towards any truck, just to grab anything that looks like food,\u201d Renard said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Craving everything\u2019<\/h5>\n

Renard describes how one woman, Samia, waited in anguish for news of her 14-year-old son, after he disappeared for days in the hunt for sustenance. \u201cHe was coming back with a bit of wheat flour or a few cans,\u201d Renard said of the boy\u2019s trips. \u201cHe would tell her, \u2018I will not go again, because it\u2019s too violent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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People rush for food arriving on a truck at the Zikim crossing point into northern Gaza. Photo: WFP Photolibrary<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cAnd what does he do at the end of the week, when food runs out?\u201d Renard asked. \u201cHe goes again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting with her family in a torn tent in Gaza City opened up to the sky, another mother, Basma, described similar ordeals. \u201cWe risked everything, just to find a bit of food,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we came back with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her family often goes for days without food, Basma added. Severely malnourished, she cannot breastfeed her son. He sips water instead of formula from a bottle; that is all the family has.<\/p>\n

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Basma\u2019s son sips water instead of formula; that is all the family has. Photo: WFP\/Ali Jadallah<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The young mother stretches out her children\u2019s meals by adding water to their small supply of lentils. With fresh water increasingly scarce, her family uses seawater down a sandy path for washing and bathing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re craving vegetables, fruits – we\u2019re craving everything,\u201d Basma said, adding her children are getting dizzy from a lack of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this continues, one of us might die of hunger,\u201d she said. \u201cGod forbid,\u201d she added. \u201cBut it\u2019s not far from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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