RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The world’s leading authority on food insecurity said Thursday that the situation in Gaza had improved since famine was declared in parts of the Palestinian territory last year, but warned that conditions remained at crisis levels and could slip back into catastrophe.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said a reduction in fighting and the fact that Israel was allowing more aid into Gaza had a “significant impact, albeit unevenly across areas.” But it noted that most families living in the war-battered enclave still weren't getting nearly enough to eat.
“Even small disruptions to humanitarian access could rapidly reverse recent gains,” the report warned.
The designation underscored how conditions in Gaza have both markedly improved since last year and remain at crisis levels without immediate prospects for recovery. More than 1,185 people have been killed by Israeli strikes and shelling since last October’s agreement, according to the territory's health ministry.
Israel controls more than half the territory, leaving Palestinians confined to squalid tent camps and heavily damaged urban neighborhoods. Failing sewage systems have contributed to routine disease outbreaks and left residents with inconsistent access to basic services.
The IPC assesses hunger crises by measuring indicators of acute malnutrition and famine, including how many households are experiencing extreme food shortages, how many young children show bodily signs of malnutrition and how many people are dying from starvation.
It uses five phases to classify food insecurity. Last August, IPC confirmed famine, its most severe classification, in Gaza Governorate, which covers Gaza City. Thursday’s report classified all five governorates in the territory as being in Phase 3 “crisis” conditions while estimating that more than 200,000 residents were experiencing Phase 4 “emergency” conditions.
Although acute food insecurity — whether households can get enough food to survive — remains at crisis levels, the authority said acute malnutrition — the physical effects of not eating enough — had declined to levels classified as acceptable, despite last year’s warnings.
It has declared famines in other places, including parts of Sudan and Somalia. But the authority's declaration last August of famine in parts of Gaza was its first in the Middle East.
Israel strenuously denied allegations of widespread hunger and manmade famine in Gaza, calling them lies. But after imposing an almost total blockade on humanitarian aid from early March to mid-May last year, it began allowing more aid into the territory.
This week's assessment was IPC’s first since December 2025, when it said famine in Gaza City had not spread as feared, downgrading the governorate's classification to Phase 4.
COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, said it “strongly rejects the claims and conclusions” in Thursday's report because it lacked objectivity and did not take into account Israel's data about the amount of aid entering.
As the world’s attention has shifted to Iran, efforts to advance reconstruction, demilitarize Gaza or transition governance to a U.S.-led Board of Peace have mostly stalled. “Measurable improvements in humanitarian access and overall conditions” have taken hold since Israel and Hamas signed on to an agreement that decreased the intensity of fighting, IPC said.
It warned such gains were fragile and partial.
Even with improvements, Gaza’s widespread destruction has left it almost wholly dependent on aid, the report warns. Palestinians have lost their livelihoods and access to most of the territory’s agricultural land, which lies in the more than half of Gaza that remains under Israel’s control.
The IPC cautioned about some indicators pointing to renewed deterioration. It said household food consumption has improved and acute malnutrition — not eating to the extent that it's life-threatening — has “declined significantly.” Still, roughly 1.4 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity through the end of the year, about 200,000 more than the IPC projected in its previous assessment covering mid-April through June of this year.
The prolonged nature of the crisis has contributed to a rise in reported cases of “stunting,” a condition in which children’s growth is permanently impaired by not being able to eat. IPC said the rise reflected “the cumulative impact of inadequate conditions” and, for kids, would have “lasting consequences for growth and cognitive development.”
Almost 75,000 children under five will require treatment for acute malnutrition between now and April 2027. Almost 25,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are expected to experience acute malnutrition over the same period, though the number benefiting from supplementary feeding programs has declined “due to funding constraints and uncertainty” over whether Israel will continue allowing international aid groups to operate, the report said.
Israel introduced new registration rules for international NGOs last year that require organizations to disclose extensive information that aid workers say could endanger staff and compromise humanitarian operations. Aid organizations say the rules could force some groups to halt operations in Gaza.
__ Najib Joubain and Sam Mednick contributed reporting from Cairo and Tamariu, Spain
A municipal worker sprays pesticide as part of an initiative to combat rodents and insects at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Omar Ghabin, 14, looks at the camera as he carries a bag after sorting through trash at a landfill in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history has killed more than 1,000 people in eastern Congo as health officials race to contain a virus with no approved vaccine or treatment.
An update from Congo’s public health institute on Wednesday said there have been 2,536 confirmed Ebola cases and 1,033 deaths, with at least 738 patients in isolation or hospitalized.
The outbreak declared on May 15 is unlike most previous instances of Ebola spreading through communities because the Bundibugyo virus responsible has no approved vaccines or treatments.
It is mostly concentrated in remote Ituri province, which accounts for nearly 90% of cases, but there have been others confirmed in five provinces including one of Congo’s largest cities, Kisangani, and in neighboring Uganda.
Here is what to know about the outbreak:
While Congolese officials say the sharp rise in cases appears to be slowing, they caution the outbreak has not yet peaked. The latest report by the country's public health institute says transmission remains sustained, with recent fluctuations in cases likely influenced by reporting delays and ongoing data consolidation.
Contact tracing continues to lag, with only around 77% of known contacts monitored nationwide, well below the 95% target health officials say is needed to interrupt transmission.
Responders are struggling to understand how far the Ebola outbreak has spread and how much worse it might become.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers last month used computer modeling and found that in a worst-case scenario, the current Ebola outbreak could approach the worst in history.
The West Africa epidemic in 2014-2016 caused more than 11,000 deaths and took about eight months from the first case to reach 1,000 deaths.
The new outbreak’s origin is still a medical mystery. The vast majority of cases are emerging from unknown chains of transmission, the World Health Organization said.
The WHO continues to assess the risk from the outbreak as “very high” inside Congo and “high” in Uganda and neighboring countries, citing cross-border spread, frequent population movement and ongoing transmission in eastern Congo.
The agency says the global risk of spread is low, noting Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person rather than through the air, making it much harder to spread than respiratory viruses.
While WHO says additional imported cases are likely as the outbreak grows, those cases have so far been rapidly detected and contained without leading to sustained transmission outside the affected region.
The CDC echoed that assessment in its latest situation report, saying Ebola doesn’t spread like respiratory viruses such as flu or COVID-19.
“You cannot get Ebola from being near someone,” the agency said.
The CDC also notes that people infected with Ebola are not contagious until they develop symptoms, making case identification and contact tracing easier than with diseases that spread before symptoms appear.
The vast majority of Ebola cases are concentrated in Congo.
In neighboring Uganda, 20 cases have been confirmed, including two deaths. All cases were linked to imported infections from Congo and are concentrated in the capital Kampala. No new Ebola cases have been reported since June 21 and the WHO has discharged its final patient, beginning the 42-day countdown used to declare the end of an outbreak.
A positive case of Ebola was identified in France in a doctor traveling from Congo in June. He has since fully recovered and was discharged from the hospital earlier this month.
The United States currently bars most recent travelers from Congo from entering the country and requires U.S. citizens to spend 21 days outside Congo before returning, while travelers from neighboring Uganda and South Sudan who are allowed to enter are routed through designated airports for Ebola screening.
U.S. plans to build an Ebola quarantine facility in Kenya for Americans evacuated from Congo have been met with legal challenges and a series of protests in Kenya, including some that have turned violent.
Lack of trust and resistance from locals remain one of the biggest obstacles to containing the outbreak, according to authorities and health workers.
Rumors about Ebola treatment centers, fears of isolation and resistance to safe burials have led some people to avoid testing or seek care only after becoming critically ill.
The response also has been hampered by conflict. Fighting involving the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, attacks by the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces and mass displacement have complicated surveillance, contact tracing and access to affected communities.
At least 16 people were killed in an attack Wednesday by suspected ADF rebels in a village in Ituri province, local authorities said Thursday.
Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks, the Bundibugyo virus driving the epidemic has no approved vaccine or treatment. Although testing capacity has expanded since the outbreak began, responders say the virus continues to spread faster than they can contain it.
“There’s never been an Ebola outbreak that started with so many cases because it was so late to be identified,” said Trish Newport, emergency program manager for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), who has been working in Congo.
Earlier this month, researchers began the first clinical trial of potential treatments for the Bundibugyo virus, enrolling patients at an Ebola treatment center in Ituri province. The WHO said it could take months and as many as 1,000 participants to determine whether either of the two experimental treatments is effective.
Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York and Prosper Heri Ngorora in Bunia, Congo, contributed to this report.
Health workers disinfects an ambulance at Ebola Treatment Center at Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Health workers disinfect a coffin of an Ebola victim at Ebola Treatment Center at Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Residence watch as health workers carry a coffin of an Ebola victim at Ebola Treatment Center at Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
Health workers disinfects an ambulance at Ebola Treatment Center at Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A health worker, wearing protective gear, stands outside the Ebola Treatment Center at the Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
