UN officials and aid agencies have warned that famine in Gaza is now a reality, with children increasingly dying of hunger as Israel’s siege and bombardment continue to block essential, life-saving aid.

In a stark address to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, officials said famine and widespread hunger in the besieged enclave are “engineered” and “man-made” catastrophes.

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Joyce Msuya, the UN’s deputy humanitarian chief, told the council that famine has been confirmed in the north-central Gaza governorate, where Gaza City is located, and is expected to spread to Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis to the south by the end of September.

“Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution and death,” Msuya said. “By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000. Virtually no one in Gaza is untouched by hunger.”

She added that at least 132,000 children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition, with more than 43,000 of them expected to face life-threatening conditions in the coming months.

“This famine is not a product of drought or some form of natural disaster,” Msuya said. “It is a created catastrophe – the result of a conflict that has caused massive civilian death, injury, destruction and forced displacement.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced 10 more deaths “due to famine and malnutrition” over the past 24 hours, including two children.

The toll brings the total number of hunger-related deaths in Gaza throughout the war to 313, including 119 children.

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‘An engineered famine’

For its part, Israel on Wednesday called on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, a famine monitoring mechanism supported by non-profits and UN agencies, to retract its findings on Gaza.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s director general, Eden Bar Tal, called last week’s report, which detailed famine in Gaza City and the surrounding area, “deeply flawed, unprofessional, and gravely missing the standards expected from an international body entrusted with such a serious responsibility”.

However, in a joint statement on Wednesday, all members of the UN Security Council – except for the US – stood by the IPC and its work.

Meanwhile, in her own searing address to the council, Save the Children chief Inger Ashing accused world powers of complicity through inaction.

“The Gaza famine is here. An engineered famine. A man-made famine,” she said. “Children in Gaza are systematically being starved to death. This is starvation as a method of war in its starkest terms.”

Ashing described clinics “packed with malnourished children” who have now fallen silent. “Children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there emaciated, quite literally wasting away.”

She recounted how children’s drawings in Save the Children support centres in Gaza have shifted from depicting hopes of peace and education to simple wishes for food, and increasingly, for death.

“Once the total siege began in March, children would increasingly tell us they wish for food, for bread. These past few weeks, more and more children have shared that they wish to be dead,” she said.

One child wrote: “I wish I was in heaven where my mother is. In heaven, there is love, there is food and water.”

Attacks continue

As famine warnings mounted at the UN, hospitals in Gaza reported new casualties from Israeli strikes.

The Kuwait Specialised Field Hospital said an overnight drone strike on tents sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis killed three people, including a child and a woman, and wounded 21 others. Nasser Hospital said at least six more were killed in separate strikes in the city.

Israeli strikes near aid distribution sites run by the controversial Israeli and US-backed GHF killed at least 12 people on Wednesday, according to medical staff. Four of the victims died in Gaza’s north while waiting for meagre food parcels.

All told, Israeli forces killed 51 Palestinians since dawn on Wednesday, according to health sources.

To date, Israel has killed at least 62,895 Palestinians in its war on Gaza. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.

The attacks come as Israeli forces continue to close in on Gaza City, using overwhelming force in its push to occupy the urban centre, with tanks and warplanes levelling entire residential blocks.

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On Tuesday, Israel dropped leaflets on the as-Saftawi area and al-Jalaa Street containing forced evacuation orders for residents to move to the south of the enclave.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee again issued a broad forced displacement order, telling residents “evacuation of Gaza City is inevitable”.