<\/p>\n
22 August 2025<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a race against time,\u201d said Rein Paulsen, Director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as UN agencies briefed on the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)<\/a> analysis confirming famine conditions in Gaza.<\/p>\n Paulsen said the findings lay out \u201cthe scale, the nature, and the magnitude of the famine unfolding.\u201d According to the IPC report<\/a>, more than half a million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic deprivation and \u201cover one million people, some 54 per cent of the population, are facing what’s classified as Emergency Phase Four. By the end of September, famine is projected to further expand to the Governorates of Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis,\u201d Paulsen noted.<\/p>\n Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of the WFP\u2019s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Service, said the confirmation reflects extreme conditions. \u201cWhat we have is extreme food deprivation, widespread acute malnutrition, and starvation-related deaths, and that should all make us pause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a famine is confirmed, it also means that we’re not just in an extreme food crisis. It means we’ve crossed the tipping point,\u201d Bauer added. \u201cWe’re not in a mathematical problem where we can say that X money or X million dollars or Y trucks will solve this problem. The problem becomes much more complex, especially in the case of the exponentially rising number of people facing malnutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n