Famine is now occurring in Gaza City, according to the world’s leading authority on food crises.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released an analysis Friday, saying more than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, suffering widespread starvation and preventable deaths.
It’s the first time the IPC has confirmed a famine in the Middle East, where Israel has been in a brutal war with Hamas since the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
People in Gaza rely almost entirely on outside aid to survive because Israel’s military offensive has wiped out most capacity to produce food inside the territory.
“I am speechless that in 2025, we are facing starvation on the planet,” said Dr. Mark Manary at Washington University in St. Louis, an expert on childhood malnutrition. “It's got to be a wake-up call.”
Manary said if food were made widely available, it would take around two or three months for the region to recover from the famine.
Here’s a look at what famine means and how the world finds out when one exists.
“Famine is, in plain language, not having enough to eat,” Manary said.
IPC, the leading international authority on hunger crises, considers an area to be in famine when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or essentially are starving; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.
Famine can appear in pockets — sometimes small ones — and a formal classification requires caution.
Last year, experts said a famine was ongoing in parts of North Darfur in Sudan. Somalia, in 2011, and South Sudan, in 2017, also saw famines in which tens of thousands of people were affected.
The short answer is, there’s no set rule.
While the IPC says it is the “primary mechanism” used by the international community to analyze data and conclude whether a famine is happening or projected, it typically doesn’t make such a declaration itself.
Often, U.N. officials or governments will make a formal statement, based on an analysis from the IPC.
In Gaza, the World Health Organization said malnutrition among children “is accelerating at a catastrophic pace,” with more than 12,000 children identified as acutely malnourished in July alone. That’s the highest monthly figure ever recorded.
When people don’t have enough to eat, Manary said, the first thing that happens is the body uses up its reserves.
“So we have about three days’ worth of carbohydrates ... and sometimes even months’ worth of fat that we can keep in our body in storage,” he said. “These are used up. And then the body still needs to keep working. So it starts breaking down less essential parts of the body. So you see, like, people become very thin.”
In a sense, he said, people’s muscles are being eaten by their own bodies to keep them going.
“The body is eating all of itself up in order to try to survive,” he said.
At some point, he said, that process breaks down and a stressor like an infection can kill the person.
If they start eating, Manary said, their risk of dying drops quite a bit in just a week. But it sometimes takes a couple of months for someone to recover completely.
When a famine is declared, governments and the international aid community, including the U.N., can potentially unlock aid and funding to help feed people en masse.
Because this famine is human-caused, “it can be halted and reversed," the IPC report said. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Taylor Frankie Paul, a reality TV star from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” and the father of her 2-year-old son were ordered Thursday to stay 100 feet (30 meters) away from each other for the next three years as a Utah court commissioner continues to assess custody plans for the child.
Paul has been unable to spend unsupervised time with her son since an April 7 hearing, when Third District Court Commissioner Russell Minas said Paul had a history of volatile behavior directed at her former partner, Dakota Mortensen, while kids were present.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.
Minas on Thursday described the pair's dynamic as “very toxic” before granting Paul and Mortensen's dueling requests for protective orders against each other. He found that “there’s been violence that occurred both ways between these parties" and urged them to figure out how to function as co-parents to their son, Ever.
“I'm hoping that you're not people who just thrive on the drama and the conflict,” Minas said. “You've got to put your child first and shield the child from this conflict.”
Paul, Mortensen and their families were present in court, but no other cast members from the Hulu reality show attended.
Attorneys for Paul and Mortensen offered competing versions of fights between the pair, with each suggesting the other party was the aggressor.
Paul's attorney Eric Swinyard told the court commissioner that Mortensen is much larger and stronger than Paul — and that when she when she was faced with physical intimidation from Mortensen during an argument, she responded the same way a lot of people would.
“He said, ‘Hit me,’ and she did,” Swinyard said.
One fight between the two came when Paul was dealing with two recent miscarriages, and she was frustrated because their child had been sick. Paul felt that Mortensen had been blowing her off when she tried to talk to him about Ever's treatment, Swinyard said.
When Paul lost her footing and fell to the ground, Mortensen kicked her several times in the leg, Swinyard said. He told Minas that photographs of the bruising were included in the exhibits.
Mortensen's attorney Brent Salazar-Hall told Minas that his client was a victim of abuse from Paul, but that she kept luring him back with text messages inviting him over for intimacy.
During one argument, Paul and Mortensen were in a truck and she tried to interfere with his driving by squeezing his face, Salazar-Hall said. In response, Mortensen shoved her away, he said.
Paul's lawyers said he slammed her head into the vehicle's dashboard, causing bruises.
Mortensen has Paul’s initials tattooed on the inside of his lip, which Paul’s attorney pointed to as an example of his possessive nature. Mortensen’s lawyer disagreed with that characterization and said all of the men on the show got lip tattoos of their partners’ names in a humorous scene that has not yet aired.
“There seems to be a continuing attraction that they have for each other, whether it’s physical, whether it’s the thrill between the two of them of making themselves celebrities,” Minas said.
“The problem is that the two of them can’t be together in the same place at the same time before it starts to turn violent,” he added.
Eleven fights between the exes were under examination in their protective order requests. A recently leaked video of one fight from 2023 prompted ABC to make the unprecedented move last month of shelving an already-filmed season of “The Bachelorette” starring Paul. Hulu also paused production of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and resumed filming last week.
In the video, Paul appeared to punch, kick and throw chairs at Mortensen while her daughter from another relationship watched and cried.
Swinyard alleged that Mortensen leaked that video to the press to ruin Paul’s reality TV career just before her season of “The Bachelorette” was supposed to air.
“Our point with the video is he’s not just trying to come after her for custody. He’s not just trying to seek a protective order. He wants to literally destroy her,” Swinyard said.
Salazar-Hall said Mortensen denies leaking the video.
Just after the fight, Paul was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. The police body camera footage of her arrest was featured in the first season of the Hulu series.
Paul pleaded guilty to an assault charge, which will be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor if she stays out of legal trouble for a three-year probationary period that ends in August. The other counts were dismissed.
Earlier this month, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office declined to file new charges against Paul in recent fights with Mortensen. Any new charges would have violated Paul's probation from the 2023 assault.
Minas said he would revisit Paul's supervised visitation requirements on May 11.
A protective order in Utah can restrict or eliminate a parent’s ability to see their child. When both parents have protective orders against each other, the court relies heavily on the recommendations of an attorney appointed to investigate the child's best interests.
Paul and Mortensen's son had a court-appointed attorney present at Thursday’s hearing to help the commissioner determine the safest arrangement for the boy.
Paul had majority of custody of their son before the April 7 hearing.
Taylor Frankie Paul, center right, appears in Third District Court for a hearing regarding protective orders between her and her former partner Dakota Mortensen in Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
Attorney Brent Salazar-Hall, representing Dakota Mortensen, speaks during a hearing regarding protective orders between Taylor Frankie Paul and Mortensen in Third District Court in Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
Taylor Frankie Paul, second from left, and Dakota Mortensen, far right, appear in Third District Court for a hearing regarding protective orders in Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
Dakota Mortensen appears in Third District Court for a hearing regarding protective orders between him and his former partner Taylor Frankie Paul in Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
Taylor Frankie Paul appears in Third District Court for a hearing regarding protective orders between her and her former partner Dakota Mortensen in Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bethany Baker/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
FILE - Taylor Frankie Paul appears at the Oscars in Los Angeles on March 15, 2026. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
