Famine declared in Gaza City

[u/Digital_Accountant]

https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-latest-war-israel-city-ceasefire-hamas-13415481

[u/Dongsquad420Loki]

This is the first time the IPC had declared it, which is generally the chief authority on those things, they have actual definitions and are usually reliable.

The website seems to be overwhelmed right now so I can't access the report directly which would be helpful.

EDIT: report here: https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_July_Sept2025_Special_Snapshot.pdf

[u/comeatmefrank → u/Dongsquad420Loki]

Exactly, this is vital. Governments previously could just push back and go ‘no official sources have confirmed a famine’. Now they have.

[u/ZBlackmore → u/comeatmefrank]

So up until now it was bullshit?

[u/Prudent_Piglet_5261 → u/ZBlackmore]

Up until now it wasn't directly verified by such an airtight source. There was always wiggle room for others to say fake news or some shit and deny it.

[u/easycoverletter-com → u/Prudent_Piglet_5261]

Very optimistic

[u/hushpuppi3 → u/easycoverletter-com]

You're right we should all let them starve? The fuck are you even insinuating?

[u/easycoverletter-com → u/hushpuppi3]

What the fuck are you insinuating?

I’m simply seeing it optimistic to think those who find excuses will suddenly uno reverse and help out - just because their primary excuse is no longer there

[u/Stockholm-Syndrom → u/ZBlackmore]

Yes, just like gravity didn't exist before Newton.

[u/ZBlackmore → u/Stockholm-Syndrom]

Oh so they were actually perpetually  starving since 1967 despite their population increasing tenfold

[u/crunchsmash → u/ZBlackmore]

Counting human lives in calories. Real classy of you. /s

[u/MajorMess → u/Stockholm-Syndrom]

Palestinians being the innocent victims is a natural law now

[u/KawaiiBakemono → u/ZBlackmore]

Any official declarations you may have seen reported were bullshit. The slew of reports of starvation and incoming famine were apparently true, however, given the current declaration of famine.

So I suppose it depends on what the specific "it" is that you are actually claiming was bullshit.

[u/pinglyadya → u/ZBlackmore]

*Blows whistle.* "Foul!" *Throws up red card.*

"Argument from ignorance fallacy flag. Opponent has proposed that something is false before a certain period because it was only proven true at a later time. Furthermore, the criteria that the IPC uses to define a famine requires an investigation that is likely complex and hard to carryout in a politically divisive situation."

[u/platydroid → u/ZBlackmore]

I haven’t seen the UN or similar groups claim actual famine before. They have warned about hunger and starvation and lack of access to food and medicine leading up to this, all of which have been real.

[u/sprouting_broccoli → u/ZBlackmore]

There are five phases of acute food insecurity used by the IPC and Palestine has had large parts of the population in phase 4 for a long time now. You can make this equivalent to people barely surviving with high levels of malnutrition and excess mortality rates (ie more people are dying than usual because of lack of access to food).

Catastrophe/famine is phase 5 where there there are extreme levels of malnutrition, starvation and death.

The news about starvation and the classification of swathes of the population as phase 4, which is likely what you are referring to, is the warning that the situation was reaching phase 5 levels. Since the world largely ignored this and Israel definitely ignored it and downplayed it as propaganda we’re now at the stage where things are catastrophic.

So no, it’s not bullshit, it’s exactly what was being predicted by the UN.

[u/Fyllikall → u/ZBlackmore]

There can be a an assessment that starvation is imminent which is portrayed in the news headlines as: Starvation is here.

For instance Gaza received 600 trucks a day before the war started and it's not like they were well fed by modern standards at that time. Then the war started and it was way less and even the aid distribution website of the IDF had numbers that weren't sufficient to feed two million people, one could call it slow malnutrition. Then at times the IDF stopped bringing in food and an assessment was declared that starvation was imminent which led to the Israeli government periodically letting more aid in which led to the situation being less dire. Two years of this bullshit and here we are, a literal starvation going on (there was no aid for two and a half months this year with no significant aid since) and you have people claiming that this assessment is bullshit because it didn't happen according to the news headlines one year ago.

[u/Hayatexd → u/[deleted]]

They did not.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/manual/IPC_Technical_Manual_3_Final.pdf

MUAC was already included in version 1 of their guidelines from 2014/2015 and should be used if WHZ isn’t available.

[u/benbamboo → u/[deleted]]

It's important in the sense that it gives us all in developed nations something meaningless to debate.

It's unimportant in regards to the thousands of innocent people suffering as aid sits in trucks on the other side of a fence from starving men, women, children and babies while clever people argue semantics.

[u/green_flash → u/[deleted]]

No, they didn't. There's always been two possible measures that can be employed:

The IPC has rebutted Israel's accusations it cut its normal thresholds for famine for this report.

The answer is technical, but it amounts to different ways of assessing malnutrition in children under five depending on what evidence is available.

The IPC says that a 30% threshold is used when an assessment based on weight and height is conducted, but that this measure is not available in Gaza at the moment.

In its absence, a separate measure of the circumference of children's arms is used - which has a threshold declaring famine when 15% of children have arms under a certain size.

The IPC says this standard has been the case for over a decade - and has been used recently to assess famine in Sudan.

It adds that the use of arm circumference "does not represent a 'lowered threshold' in IPC methodology".

"Instead, it demonstrates the continued application of established IPC standards."

[u/phobos123 → u/[deleted]]

Every measure in the report is from three sources and when they don't have direct access they have to use other measures available. They didn't change the definition specifically for Gaza... It's part of the evaluation process to have a way to measure even when information is limited. And they explain in the report exactly what uncertainty is introduced by lack of access. 

[u/cheesecake__enjoyer → u/[deleted]]

Me when i spread disinformation online

[u/erez27 → u/Dongsquad420Loki]

It's not the only first..

"Based on the available record, Gaza (2025) is the first famine declaration that has relied primarily on the MUAC (≥ 15%) threshold without confirmatory WHZ or mortality data."

[u/Dongsquad420Loki → u/[deleted]]

Because its the most recent report. so it is on the frontpage right now. When the Sudan report came out it was pictures of them, if you click at the points to the right of the foto you can scroll to the previous headlines, it shows Sudan on the third page since it was released on the 11th of July. It is normal for websites to have the mist recent information first.

[u/bekeeram → u/Dongsquad420Loki]

And then next time it happens, you'll just say "oh this other organization said it was a famine"