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)
Democratic socialist Melat Kiros beat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in a Colorado House primary Tuesday, a stunning victory for the first-time candidate against a nearly 30-year incumbent and another win for the Democratic Socialists of America.
Kiros, 29, is the latest candidate to rise from the party's left flank and boot an incumbent, with two self-described democratic socialists winning their primaries last week in New York. The Colorado district covers the dark blue city of Denver, and Kiros is expected to win in November and reach Congress in January.
The victory helped answer a question that's recently faced the party nationally: Are voters gravitating toward a younger, more progressive generation of leaders?
Elsewhere, however, Sen. John Hickenlooper successfully fended off a primary challenge from self-fashioned “insurgent progressive” state Sen. Julie Gonzales.
And while a smaller divide separated the two Democrats competing for U.S. House in the state's lone swing district, the candidate considered more progressive, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, won.
In the governor's race, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet struggled to meaningfully distinguish their agendas. Instead, the two Democrats accused each other of pulling punches against Trump. Weiser won Tuesday.
DeGette had comfortably controlled her House seat — as a more progressive lawmaker herself — in Denver for nearly 30 years, then came Kiros.
The early signs showed in a March Democratic assembly, a process to decide which candidates get on the primary ballot. Both candidates qualified for the ballot, but first-time candidate Kiros blew past DeGette.
She won again Tuesday, an even bigger jolt for the Democratic establishment and DeGette, who's been a progressive lawmaker herself.
Kiros joins two democratic socialists and a progressive who beat out establishment-backed candidates — two of whom were incumbants — in Democratic House primaries in New York.
Similar to the New York races, Kiros had the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, while DeGette was backed by Colorado’s established Democratic House delegation.
Kiros's victory helps cement the nascent but clear uprising of democratic socialist candidates, which has made some party leaders uneasy.
DeGette had argued that experience in Congress is needed right now to combat Trump, while Kiros, a former attorney, accused DeGette of ineffectiveness.
That didn't come as a surprise to the political world, though it dampened a broader wave of progressive candidates beating establish-backed Democrats across the country.
Gonzales, the state senator who challenged the more centrist Hickenlooper, had attacked him for being an “incrementalist” and had said she previously joined the Democratic Socialists of America but that her membership had lapsed.
After his victory, Hickenlooper quickly turned his attention to Trump and said he'd never lost an election and didn't intend to in November.
“Coloradoans have once again made their voices clear. We are not going to accept Trump’s broken promises and cost of living emergency, or his constant corruption,” he said in a video posted to YouTube.
Colorado's 8th Congressional District is relatively new, stretching from the northern suburbs of Denver up through farming country, and has flipped party control in recent elections.
Evans now holds the seat, after beating the Democratic incumbent in 2024.
Party leaders thought the more moderate Shannon Bird, a former state representative, was best equipped to challenge Evans. But Rutinel, who had the more progressive record, beat Bird Tuesday night.
The district is heavily Hispanic and poorer than much of the rest of the state, and that's where Rutinel, who is Latino, planted a flag, arguing his personal story and more aggressive economic agenda would be more potent against Evans.
“This is the moment for all the kids out there who had the deck stacked against them,” Rutinel said in his victory speech. “I’m going to work with everything I have so that those kids have the same opportunities to live out the American Dream that I did.”
Weiser, the state attorney general, won the Democratic primary Tuesday and is expecting to win come November. Term-limited Gov. Jared Polis will depart after two-terms governing with a more moderate touch, at times stymieing progressive state lawmakers.
Weiser, who formerly served in the presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, is considered to be more sympathetic to his leftward flank. Bennet, the U.S. Senator who Weiser beat Tuesday, would likely have brought a similar change.
On the campaign trail, candidates struggled to show major differences in their political agendas, and instead often attacked each other over who could better stand up to Trump.
Weiser hammered his point home in a victory speech to ecstatic, sign-waving supporters who crowded around the candidate.
“In the face of a lawless bullying Trump administration trying to intimidate us, rip away our rights and freedoms," Weiser said, “you made it clear that we need a leader who will fight back and never bend the knee.”
After his loss, Bennet spoke to supporters. “Sometimes the harder path is the right path, even when it doesn’t lead where you’d hoped," he said.
Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros speaks after winning the Democratic nomination during a primary election night watch party at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Supporters dance after the second round of results came in with Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros leading during a primary election night watch party at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Hasan Piker, center, takes a photo with Dolfin Olsen and Micah Stemm-Wolf at Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros' primary election night watch party, at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Supporters cheer as the second round of results come in with Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros leading during an election night watch party at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Supporters cheer after the second round of results came in with Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros leading during an election night watch party at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Erin Ludlam talks to a voter about where they can park and vote inside of Blair-Caldwell Library, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Danielle Grisolano brings her dogs Lincoln and Pepper with her to vote in the Democratic primaries at Denver Public Library, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Nikita Valdez jumps while cheering after the first report of the election results show Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros in the lead during a primary election night watch party at The Broadway, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
Adam Ballinger walks a voters ballot to the box in the Democratic primaries at a drop off location near the Denver Museum of Art, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
People vote in the Democratic primaries at Blair-Caldwell Library, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)
