Israel demands retraction of ‘fraudulent’ Gaza famine report

Israel is demanding the retraction of a “deeply flawed” UN-supported agency report that declared a famine in Gaza City and claimed conditions are likely to spread in coming weeks.

On Friday 22 August, The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a watchdog used worldwide to classify food insecurity, alleged that 514,000 people – close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza – are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report “lies” and a “modern blood libel,” and claimed: “Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation.”

The US described the IPC’s report as part of a “false narrative of deliberate mass starvation” from Hamas.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs director general Eden Bar Tal has now demanded the IPC retract the report in full, vowing to turn to the organisation’s donors – including the UK, Germany, EU and Canada – to stop their funding.

The letter demands that the IPC “conduct an urgent and transparent review” of the findings against the report that “will address methodological breaches and avoid misleading the international community, the public and policymakers.”

Addressing international media on Wednesday, Bar Tal claimed the report had been “forged for political purposes. No doubt the IPC manipulated and ignored data, broke its own rules and hid contradictory evidence. That report was fabricated for a purpose – to support Hamas’ fake starvation campaign.”

In its own assessment, Israel authorities claim the report relied on only half of the data actually collected in July, which if reported in full, placed Gaza City well below the famine threshold.

Additionally, it accuses the IPC of using a “distortion of malnutrition data” to prop up the famine designation, “a designation that would have collapsed had the IPC acknowledged the complete July results.”

It adds that the report fails to acknowledge a sharp rise in aid deliveries and distributions, a steep drop in food prices and documented measures by Israel to expand humanitarian access, including daily humanitarian pauses, the opening of crossings and supply routes and repairs to water and electricity lines.

Further allegations include that the IPC invented 182 virtual deaths to reach the threshold of 188 for famine, broke its own rules by using a 15% MUAC (mid-upper arm circumference) measurement standard that is prohibited for use in cases like Gaza, used data from clinics (which is not permitted by IPC’s own rules), hid data that contradicted its “agenda” by conducting two surveys in Gaza and hiding in an appendix the one indicating no famine in Gaza.

The IPC’s new report furthers the controversy over its methodology. A recent Washington Free Beacon investigation claimed the organisation quietly amended its own classification metrics, used for other conflict zones, to inflate the figures in Gaza. Critics claim that its data relies heavily on unverifiable sources, such as the Hamas-run Gaza “Health Ministry”.

It has previously registered famines four times: in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020 and in Sudan in 2024.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has described the claims of a famine in Gaza City as “utterly horrifying” and accused the Israeli government of causing a “man-made catastrophe”.

The IDF announced on Wednesday that two additional humanitarian aid and food distribution centres are being built in the southern Gaza Strip and will be run by the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The work, due to be completed over the next few days, is part of preparations to receive Palestinians Israel plans to relocate there during its takeover of Gaza City. The new sites will replace the distribution centre in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood and bring the total of humanitarian hubs to five.