Gaza has been at risk of famine for months, experts say. Here's why they haven't declared one

For months, U.N. officials, aid groups and experts have warned that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are on the brink of famine without formally declaring one.

Even though Israel eased a 2 1/2-month blockade on the territory in May, aid groups say only a trickle of assistance is getting into the enclave and that Palestinians face catastrophic levels of hunger 21 months into the Israeli offensive launched after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.

Hundreds have been killed by Israeli forces as they try to reach aid sites or convoys, according to witnesses, health officials and the United Nations' human rights office. The military says it has only fired warning shots.

Despite the mounting desperation, there's been no formal declaration of famine. Here's why:

Gaza’s population of roughly 2 million Palestinians relies almost entirely on outside aid. Israel's offensive has wiped out what was already limited local food production. Israel's blockade, along with ongoing fighting and chaos inside the territory, has further limited people's access to food.

The U.N. World Food Program says Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation." Nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza’s population is going days without eating, Ross Smith, the agency’s director for emergencies, said Monday.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Tuesday that more than 100 people have died while showing signs of hunger and malnutrition, mostly children.

It did not give their exact cause of death. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, is staffed by medical professionals and its figures on war deaths are seen by the U.N. and other experts as the most reliable estimate of casualties.

The leading international authority on food crises is the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia. It includes more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies.

Famine can appear in pockets — sometimes small ones — and a formal classification requires caution.

The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region. Tens of thousands are believed to have died in Somalia and South Sudan.

It rates an area as in famine when all three of these conditions are confirmed:

— 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving.

— At least 30% of children six months to five years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height.

— At least two people or four children under five per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

Gaza poses a major challenge for experts because Israel severely limits access to the territory, making it difficult and in some cases impossible to gather data.

While the IPC says it is the “primary mechanism” used by the international community to conclude whether a famine is happening or projected, it typically doesn’t make such a declaration itself.

Often, U.N. officials together with governments will make a formal statement based on an analysis from the IPC.

But the IPC says once a famine is declared it's already too late. While it can prevent further deaths, it means many people will have died by the time a famine is declared.

Most cases of severe malnutrition in children arise through a combination of lack of nutrients along with an infection, leading to diarrhea and other symptoms that cause dehydration, said Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine” and executive director of the World Peace Foundation.

“There are no standard guidelines for physicians to classify cause of death as ‘malnutrition’ as opposed to infection," he said.

When famine occurs, there are often relatively few deaths from hunger alone, with far more people dying from a combination of malnutrition, disease and other forms of deprivation. All of these count as excess deaths — separate from violence — that can be attributed to a food crisis or famine, he said.

Israel's offensive has gutted Gaza's health system and displaced some 90% of its population. With hospitals damaged and overwhelmed by war casualties, it can be difficult to screen people for malnutrition and collect precise data on deaths.

“Data and surveillance systems are incomplete and eroded," said James Smith, an emergency doctor and lecturer in humanitarian policy at the University College London who spent more than two months in Gaza.

“Which means that all health indicators — and the death toll — are known to be an underestimation,” he said.

A declaration of famine should in theory galvanize the international community to rush food to those who need it. But with aid budgets already stretched, and war and politics throwing up obstacles, that doesn't always happen.

“There is not a big, huge bank account” to draw on, said OCHA’s Laerke. “The fundamental problem is that we build the fire engine as we respond.”

Aid groups say plenty of food and other aid has been gathered on Gaza's borders, but Israel is allowing only a small amount to enter. Within Gaza, gunfire, chaos and looting have plagued the distribution of food.

The Israeli military says it has facilitated the entry of some 4,500 aid trucks since mid-May. That’s far below the 600 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. An Israeli-backed American contractor is also distributing food.

U.N. agencies say Israeli restrictions, and the breakdown of law and order, make it difficult to distribute the food that does come in.

“Only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilize this spiraling situation, calm anxieties and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming,” the World Food Program said over the weekend. “An agreed ceasefire is long overdue.”

This story was first published on July 22, 2025. It was updated on July 23, 2025, to correct that an area is in famine when all three of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s conditions are confirmed.

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

Displaced Palestinians receive donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Injured Palestinians are transferred to an ambulance after being wounded while waiting for aid arriving from the northern Gaza Strip, in Gaza City, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians carry sacks of flour unloaded from a humanitarian aid convoy that reached Gaza City from the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians hold onto an aid truck returning to Gaza City from the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians hold onto an aid truck returning to Gaza City from the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

U.S. forces have boarded another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The announcement was made Friday by the U.S. military. The Trump administration has been targeting sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.

The pre-dawn action was carried out by U.S. Marines and Navy, taking part in the monthslong buildup of forces in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Southern Command, which declared “there is no safe haven for criminals” as it announced the seizure of the vessel called the Olina.

Navy officials couldn’t immediately provide details about whether the Coast Guard was part of the force that took control of the vessel as has been the case in the previous seizures. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard said there was no immediate comment on the seizure.

The Olina is the fifth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of a broader effort by Trump’s administration to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.

The latest:

Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, says a documentary film about first lady Melania Trump will make its premiere later this month, posting a trailer on X.

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Melania Trump also released a self-titled memoir in late 2024.

Some artists have canceled scheduled Kennedy Center performances after a newly installed board voted to add President Donald Trump’s to the facility, prompting Grenell to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says that she has asked her foreign affairs secretary to reach out directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump regarding comments by the American leader that the U.S. cold begin ground attacks against drug cartels.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News aired Thursday night, Trump said, “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch.”

As she has on previous occasions, Sheinbaum downplayed the remarks, saying “it is part of his way of communicating.” She said she asked her Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente to strengthen coordination with the U.S.

Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s offer to send U.S. troops after Mexican drug cartels. She emphasizes that there will be no violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, but the two governments will continue to collaborate closely.

Analysts do not see a U.S. incursion in Mexico as a real possibility, in part because Sheinbaum’s administration has been doing nearly everything Trump has asked and Mexico is a critical trade partner.

Trump says he wants to secure $100 billion to remake Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, a lofty goal going into a 2:30 meeting on Friday with executives from leading oil companies. His plan rides on oil producers being comfortable in making commitments in a country plagued by instability, inflation and uncertainty.

The president has said that the U.S. will control distribution worldwide of Venezuela’s oil and will share some of the proceeds with the country’s population from accounts that it controls.

“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.

Trump is banking on the idea that he can tap more of Venezuela’s petroleum reserves to keep oil prices and gasoline costs low.

At a time when many Americans are concerned about affordability, the incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can bring down energy prices.

Trump is expected to meet with oil executives at the White House on Friday.

He hopes to secure $100 billion in investments to revive Venezuela’s oil industry. The goal rides on the executives’ comfort with investing in a country facing instability and inflation.

Since a U.S. military raid captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has said there’s a new opportunity to use the country’s oil to keep gasoline prices low.

The full list of executives invited to the meeting has not been disclosed, but Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend.

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The Trump administration has cited concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families and their children. California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York states filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit asks the courts to order the administration to release the funds. The attorneys general have called the funding freeze an unconstitutional abuse of power.

Iran’s judiciary chief has vowed decisive punishment for protesters, signaling a coming crackdown against demonstrations.

Iranian state television reported the comments from Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Friday. They came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Trump’s support for the protesters, calling Trump’s hands “stained with the blood of Iranians.”

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The protests began over Iran’s struggling economy and have become a significant challenge to the government. Violence has killed at least 50 people, and more than 2,270 have been detained.

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Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate.

December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November.

The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

FILE - President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)