28.08.2025

Declaration of the obvious

After nearly two years of inflicting industrial-scale violence, the Zionist state now stands officially accused of presiding over a genocidal famine, writes Ian Spencer

Gaza is now in a “state of famine”. That declaration of the obvious by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) makes clear to the bourgeois press what anyone with eyes to see has known for a long time. A carefully engineered famine is preparing Gaza for either ethnic cleansing, a second Nakba, or genocide.

The IPC classification of famine requires three critical thresholds to be passed: extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths, all of which have been visible in Gaza for some time, but now even the IPC cannot ignore it:

Half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death. Another 1.07 million people (54%) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20%) are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).

Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with Famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58%). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly.

Through June 2026, at least 132,000 children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, double the IPC estimates from May 2025. This includes over 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death. Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will also require urgent nutrition response.¹

Inevitably, Israel has accused the IPC of being manipulated by Hamas, but that lie is refuted by the sheer scale of data coming from a whole variety of sources, including the United Nations and aid agencies on the ground. UN secretary general António Guterres said: “… it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment - and a failure of humanity itself. Famine is not about food: it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival.”²

That the UN should express its condemnation in moral terms with its implication of a failing of “humanity” is predictable enough. Guterres went on to state that, “As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law - including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies to the population”, ignoring the fact, of course, that neither Israel nor the US give a damn about international law. We are living in a period where any appeal to the legal basis for international action is being treated with contempt.

Double strike

As if to make the point, on August 25 it was reported that the IDF had bombed the Nasser Medical Centre in Khan Younis. Then, after health personnel and journalists rushed to the area to rescue the wounded and bear witness, they bombed it again (recorded in real time by a cameraman operating the Reuters live-feed). At least 21 were killed, including four medical personnel and five journalists, including one from Al Jazeera and another from Reuters. In a separate act in Khan Younis a sixth journalist was killed by the IDF, bringing the death toll on journalists to over 270.

On August 25, IDF attacks killed 61 in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel has killed at least 62,819 people and wounded 158,629 since October 2023. We know that the figures compiled by the GHM consistently underestimate the death toll by as much as 41%, partly because of all those unreachable under the rubble and the logistical difficulties of accounting for all the deaths.³ This is an estimate that has been broadly supported by more recent evidence in the June 2025 edition of Nature, which suggests a death toll closer to 84,000.⁴ Leaked documents show that even the IDF estimate that 83% of those killed are civilians.⁵ These estimates, of course, do not take into account the many thousands of non-violent deaths directly attributable to the war.

The ‘double tap’ of a hospital is an act so heinous that even foreign secretary David Lammy felt it necessary to go on record to say that he was “horrified” by the strike - but not so horrified that he was willing to do anything to reduce the UK support for the IDF, such as the reconnaissance flights over Gaza by the RAF, the supply of military hardware by Israeli arms manufacturers operating in the UK, or the use of RAF Akrotiri as a staging point for US airforce flights bringing in war material for the IDF.

Live on TV, Donald Trump invited people to believe that he was unaware of the attack, until briefed in real time, but then went to on say: “I think that within the next two to three weeks you’re going to have a pretty good, conclusive ending.” It’s tempting to regard this as typical Trump braggadocio, but it must be taken in the context of the growing offensive against Gaza city. Tanks, planes and artillery have already been bombarding the city in preparation of the onslaught. At least 300 were killed on August 26.

Israel has called up 60,000 reservists and the military has stated that they plan to evacuate the entire population of the city to “shelters” in the south before troops move in.⁶ Whether this is the ‘humanitarian city’ - a concentration camp, mooted by defence minister Israel Katz on the ruins of Rafah - remains to be seen. However, Netanyahu was widely known to support the idea. Videos, verified by Al Jazeera show Palestinians fleeing southwards to ‘concentration zones’.⁷

The likelihood is that famine will intensify in the coming months, even though food aid is stockpiled outside of Gaza, but is simply prevented from entering the strip by Israel. Netanyahu, naturally, has repeatedly denied that starvation exists. Where there is hunger, he says, it is the fault of aid agencies (as well as Hamas).

Israel introduced a total food blockade in March. Following international pressure, a limited amount of aid was allowed in from late May, when Israel and the US took over food distribution, using the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has four food distribution sites in militarised zones that Palestinians must walk long distances to reach. These have replaced the 400 distribution points previously administered by the UN.

The UN has recorded 994 Palestinians killed in the vicinity of GHF sites since late May - just some of the 1,760 killed trying to access aid - the majority shot by Israeli troops, but also by contractors and an armed gang employed by the GHF. This has been condemned by Médecins Sans Frontières as “slaughter masquerading as aid”. Some have even been killed by air drops of food aid - a distribution method condemned by humanitarian organisations as inefficient and dangerous and a distraction from the urgent need to transport large amounts of aid quickly. Around 600 trucks of food a day are needed to meet the most basic needs of Gaza. Israel allows in less than half of that. Meanwhile the price of a kilo of flour has shot up to the equivalent of $85.

The GHF is led by executive director John Acree, a former USAID manager. His executive chairman, Johnnie Moore, is an American evangelical leader, Christian Zionist and businessman, who had previously praised Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.⁸ The plan to take over aid distribution began in 2023, when Israeli officials worked with private American security contractors - primarily CIA veteran Philip Reilly, who launched the security company, Safe Reach Solutions, in January 2025 and was given the task of securing food distribution sites in Gaza.⁹ SRS is owned by a trust based in Wyoming, whose beneficiary is McNally Capital, a private equity firm, founded in 2008 by Ward McNally.

Humanitarian?

The Boston Consulting Group was also involved in setting up GHF, with multiple contracts with McNally to assist SRS, and was responsible for setting prices for contractors. It later withdrew, but not before submitting invoices of over $1 million a month!¹⁰ Such is the behaviour of ‘non-profit organisations’ initiated by Israel and supported by the US!

While the GHF does not release information on its funding sources, on June 6 Reuters reported that the US state department was considering sending $500 million, released by defunding USAID.¹¹ Possibly one of the reasons USAID was defunded was that it had reported that there was no evidence of Hamas stealing aid - as I have said, the principal justification that Israel used for the establishment of GHF.¹²

While evidence that aid is being systematically stolen by Hamas may be weak, it seems possible that some is being snatched by the so-called Popular Forces (al-Quwwāt ash-Sha’biyya), an anti-Hamas militia group led by Yasser Abu Shabab, which is armed and controlled by Israel, and responsible for killing at least some people at GHF sites.¹³

On November 16 2024 Abu Shabab’s group raided a convoy of 109 UN trucks and looted 98 of them.¹⁴ Israel not only knows who the looters are: it arms and pays them! Most of the Popular Forces are based near Rafah, which is tipped to be the concentration camp of southern Gaza, with the collaboration of the United Arab Emirates, which seems likely to provide some of the infrastructure for the project.

‘Operation Gallant Knight’ was ordered by the UAE’s Sheik Muhammad bin Zyad al-Nahyan in November 2023, ostensibly to deliver aid to Gaza. However, the most recent plan is to provide desalinated water to southern Gaza and this appears to be coordinated with Israel. It has chosen the same area earmarked for Israel’s concentration camp. So the UAE will provide the water, Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces will provide ‘security’ and the GHF will deliver the ‘aid’.

Those in Gaza who do not relocate will be subject to extermination by Israeli bullets, shells, drones, bombs and missiles¹⁵.