The World Food Programme (WFP) issued a stark warning on Tuesday, urging an immediate and substantial increase in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip to reach starving civilians “before it’s too late.” The agency emphasized that famine is “spreading rapidly” across the besieged enclave.
According to a joint UN report on global food security and nutrition for 2025—published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), WFP, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization—every resident of Gaza is currently experiencing severe food insecurity.
The crisis is unfolding amid an ongoing Israeli blockade and military campaign that rights groups and UN experts have characterized as a genocide.
The report identifies Gaza as the territory with the highest proportion of population suffering from acute food insecurity worldwide. It states that 100% of Gaza’s population is affected, marking an unprecedented humanitarian collapse.
In 2024, approximately 2 million people across five countries and regions faced IPC Phase 5—the most extreme level of hunger. More than half of them, around 1,106,900 individuals, were in Gaza.
This figure nearly doubles the estimate from late 2023, when 576,000 people were classified at this level, making Gaza the most severely affected area ever recorded in the history of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
In a post on the social platform X, WFP reiterated the urgency of the situation, stating: “There is an urgent need for a massive scale-up in food assistance to reach all starving people across Gaza before it’s too late.”
The agency confirmed it has enough food stockpiled to feed Gaza’s entire population for three months, but stressed that Israeli restrictions are preventing the entry of aid.
WFP called for the immediate opening of all border crossings, the expansion of humanitarian truck convoys, and the establishment of additional internal routes to expedite delivery and reduce delays in reaching those most at risk.
