Hello and welcome to the details of UN says famine over in Gaza but warns ‘situation remains critical’ as food insecurity persists and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Displaced Palestinians stand next to destroyed houses in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 19, 2025. A famine declared in Gaza in August is now over thanks to improved access for humanitarian aid, the United Nations said on December 19, but warned the food situation in the Palestinian territory remained dire. — AFP pic
ROME, Dec 20 — A famine declared in Gaza in August is now over thanks to improved access for humanitarian aid, the United Nations said yesterday, but warned the food situation in the Palestinian territory remained dire.
More than 70 per cent of the population is living in makeshift shelters, it said, with hunger exacerbated by winter floods and an increasing risk of hypothermia as temperatures plummet.
Although a ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hamas that took effect in October has partially eased restrictions on goods and aid, delivery fluctuates daily and is limited and uneven across the territory, it said.
“No areas are classified in Famine,” said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises.
But it stressed that “the situation remains critical: the entire Gaza Strip is classified in Emergency”.
The US-sponsored ceasefire halted two years of fighting, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Yet the deal remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of violations.
“Following the ceasefire... the latest IPC analysis indicates notable improvements in food security and nutrition compared to the August 2025 analysis, which detected famine,” the IPC said.
However, around 1.6 million people are still forecast to face “crisis” levels of food insecurity in the period running to April 15, it said.
And under a worst-case scenario involving renewed hostilities and a halt in humanitarian aid and commercial goods, the territories of North Gaza, Gaza Governorate, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis risk famine, it said.
A Palestinian man carries a food ration box provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), at a distribution centre in the village of Al-Zawayda, in the centre of the Gaza Strip on October 27, 2025. — AFP pic
‘Alarmingly high’
The UN’s agencies said that despite the roll-back of famine, hunger, malnutrition, disease and the scale of agricultural destruction remains “alarmingly high”.
“Humanitarian needs remain staggering, with current assistance addressing only the most basic survival requirements,” the food, agriculture, health, and childrens’ agencies said in a joint statement.
“Only access, supplies and funding at scale can prevent famine from returning,” they said.
The UN’s declaration of famine in August — the first time it has done so in the Middle East — infuriated Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slamming the IPC report as “an outright lie”.
Yesterday, foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on X that faced with “overwhelming and unequivocal evidence, even the IPC had to admit that there is no famine in Gaza”.
But he also accused the IPC of continuing to present a “distorted” picture by relying “primarily on data related to UN trucks, which account for only 20 per cent of all aid trucks”.
Oxfam said that despite the end of the famine, the levels of hunger in Gaza remain “appalling and preventable”, and accused Israel of blocking aid requests from dozens of well-established humanitarian agencies.
“Oxfam alone has US$2.5m (RM10.1 million) worth of aid including 4,000 food parcels, sitting in warehouses just across the border. Israeli authorities refuse it all,” said Nicolas Vercken, Campaigns and Advocacy Director at Oxfam France.
Displaced Palestinians watch as a motorcyclist rides on the sand dunes opposite displaced shelters in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 19, 2025. More than 70 percent of the population is living in makeshift shelters, it said, with hunger exacerbated by winter floods and an increasing risk of hypothermia as temperatures plummet. — AFP pic
‘Rapidly deteriorating’
The IPC said hunger was not the only challenge to those in the Palestinian territory.
Access to water, sanitation and hygiene is severely limited, it said, with open defecation and overcrowded living conditions increasing the risk of disease outbreaks.
Over 96 per cent of cropland in the Gaza Strip is either damaged, inaccessible, or both, it said, while livestock has been decimated.
“It breaks my heart to see the ongoing scale of human suffering in Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday.
“We need more crossings, the lifting of restrictions on critical items, the removal of red tape, safe routes inside Gaza, sustained funding, and unimpeded access — including for NGOs,” he said.
Guterres also urged the world “not lose sight of the rapidly deteriorating situation in the West Bank”, where Palestinians “face escalating Israeli settler violence, land seizures, demolitions and intensified movement restrictions.” — AFP
These were the details of the news UN says famine over in Gaza but warns ‘situation remains critical’ as food insecurity persists for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
