Gaza is officially experiencing a famine

It's hard to know how Israel can deny that it is causing starvation and famine in Gaza.

The International Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a partnership of UN agencies and NGOs and considered the global standard for food security analysis, officially confirmed that there is now a famine in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that Deir-al-Balah and Khan Younis are also expected to meet to that designation by next month. At least half a million people, a quarter of the population of Gaza, are facing catastrophic level of hunger and are dying from malnutrition-related causes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction? "The IPC report is an outright lie. Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation." COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for distributing aid in the territory, calls the report "false and biased".

So, there you have it: no famine.

It's not like the Israelis can't see what is happening. They are right there, occupying most of the Gaza Strip, and supposedly transferring food aid. And it's not like the IPC is a rabid, radical organization, spewing out untrustworthy data and analysis. They have no axe to grind, and are not a mouthpiece of Hamas as some Israelis have tried to paint them. You can see photos and videos of starving and malnourished Palestinians on the Internet; are these all false too?

IPC famine determinations are rare. They have previously called famines in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017, and Sudan's Darfur region in 2024. That is the level of starvation being caused by Israel in Gaza, whatever Netanyahu thinks official Israeli policy is.