Gaza: The United Nations, through the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO), officially declared Gaza to be in a state of famine, amid the continued blockade and depletion of essential food and medical supplies.

According to Qatar News Agency, in a joint statement, the UN agencies confirmed that levels of acute malnutrition among children, pregnant women, and the elderly have reached catastrophic levels, warning that the humanitarian situation in the Strip threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands and could lead to a total collapse of the health and relief systems.

The United Nations called on the international community to take immediate action to open safe humanitarian corridors and ensure the sustainable and urgent flow of aid to save lives and prevent the worsening of the disaster.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international mechanism supported by the UN, reported that more than 514,000 people, about a quarter of Gaza's population, are already living in famine conditions.

It warned that the number could rise to 641,000 by the end of September, making it the first officially declared famine in the Middle East.

The report indicated that northern Gaza, including Gaza City, is the most affected, with the disaster likely to extend to the governorates of Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis, where hunger and acute malnutrition indicators continue to reach critical levels.

According to IPC standards, famine declaration depends on three key indicators: near-total food insecurity, high rates of acute malnutrition, and elevated mortality rates due to starvation. The UN confirmed that two of these indicators have already been surpassed, while evidence of the third is increasingly alarming.

Field reports indicate that around 70,000 children under the age of five are in urgent need of specialized therapeutic food, while available aid reaches less than 5 percent of their needs. Cases of acute malnutrition among children in Gaza City have doubled in two months, reaching 16.5 percent.

Commenting on the developments, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that what is happening in Gaza represents a man-made disaster and a failure of human conscience, calling for an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of safe and sustained humanitarian access to civilians.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk affirmed that deliberately starving civilians for military purposes constitutes a war crime, demanding accountability for those responsible for these grave violations.

Tom Fletcher, Special Humanitarian Envoy, stated that the current famine could have been avoided had humanitarian aid not been repeatedly and deliberately obstructed.

Relief agencies fear that the continuation of the crisis will lead to a complete collapse of Gaza's health and humanitarian infrastructure, with hundreds of thousands of civilians lacking food, medicine, and clean drinking water, amid growing warnings of a sharp rise in deaths, especially among children and the elderly.