The UN-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification is expected to declare a famine in Gaza City on Friday, a move Israeli officials say is politically motivated and aimed at generating international condemnation of Israel. According to officials in Jerusalem, the criteria for defining a famine were recently altered without explanation, raising concerns that the announcement is designed to exert pressure on Israel.
Last month, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer rejected accusations that Israel is responsible for hunger in Gaza, insisting that Hamas is deliberately creating the crisis. “In Gaza today there is no famine caused by Israel,” Mencer told reporters. “There is, however, a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas. Now, too often the full story is not being told. The suffering exists because Hamas has created it. The suffering exists because Hamas has made it.”
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More than 100 humanitarian aid organizations, including Oxfam, have warned that famine conditions are imminent, arguing that Israel has systematically restricted the entry of food and water. Mencer dismissed these claims as “false warnings,” reiterating that Israel facilitates aid while Hamas diverts or blocks supplies.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by both the United States and Israel, also accused Hamas of looting UN aid shipments, preventing them from reaching civilians. Israeli officials point to this pattern as evidence that Hamas manipulates humanitarian relief for its own benefit, worsening the crisis on the ground.
Jerusalem fears the anticipated IPC declaration will bolster international criticism, but maintains that the root cause of the suffering is Hamas’s exploitation of aid and deliberate creation of shortages, not Israeli policy.