UN-backed famine watchdog secretly changed criteria in order to declare famine in Gaza
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification changed its own rules to make it possible to declare 'worst-case scenario' in the Strip
A United Nations backed body that classifies famine levels appears to have quietly amended its own classification metrics, used for other conflict zones, to inflate the figures in Gaza.
The data from Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) relies heavily on unverifiable sources, such as the Hamas-run Gaza “Health Ministry”.
According to media outlet Washington Free Beacon, the organisation, a network of western governments, the UN and various non-profit groups, cut the malnutrition threshold in half from 30 percent to 15, switched to a less reliable metric (mid-upper arm circumference or MUAC) in the Gazan cities of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and Gaza City, and used unverifiable, Hamas-linked “data”.
According to the Free Beacon, it “buried the changes in a footnote”.
In a July 29 report, the IPC claimed “the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” stating that “mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths.”
Global media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, and ABC News based their reporting on the dossier, going on to publicly claim that Israeli policies have led to mass starvation, with the NYT stating that “months of severe aid restrictions imposed by Israel on the territory” have caused a famine “across most of Gaza.”
Responding today on social media, COGAT, Israel’s organisation for the coordination of government activities in the Territories, called the revelations “highly concerning”.
It added: “With one barely noticeable footnote, without any explanation, the IPC effectively cut by half one of the three empirical criteria it has been applying globally to date. This is the latest example of the IPC’s persistent lack of transparency, double standards and methodological issues in its reports on Gaza throughout the war.”
It claims that as yet, no response or explanations were ever provided by the IPC, as “a major player in shaping the narrative on Gaza” for “exerting pressure on Israel and vilifying it with false accusations of starvation. Bending core definitions in this manner at this sensitive time raises serious questions regarding the reliability of its reports on Gaza.”
Also speaking to the Beacon was Richard Goldberg, a former White House and national security council staffer in both Trump administrations who spent a decade performing humanitarian aid oversight on Capitol Hill, who said the IPC standards are another example of UN “malfeasance”.
“If you keep pulling the thread here, you start to understand this is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the world. There is no famine in Gaza—the data thresholds don’t support that claim—and yet we have the United Nations changing the rules to fit the desired political outcome.”
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