On August 22, 2025, the Famine Review Committee of the IPC, a UN-backed hunger monitor, officially declared that a famine was unfolding in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City and its environs.

The report also warned that the famine could spread to Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the coming weeks.

The media was quick to pick up on this famine classification, uncritically parroting the report’s findings with such headlines as

Gaza City and Surrounding Areas Are Officially Under Famine, Monitors Say (The New York Times)

How Israel’s policies created famine in Gaza (BBC)

Gaza City suffering a ‘man-made’ famine that’s likely to spread, UN-backed initiative says (CNN)

However, while the media largely platformed the report’s findings and dismissed Israel’s objections, critics have cast a pall of doubt over the famine declaration, pointing to faulty methodology, disregard for established standards, and the questionable contributions of two anti-Israel academics to the report.

Questionable Methodology & Disregard for Established Standards

For a famine to be declared in a specific area, three thresholds have to be crossed:

1. 20% of households have to face extreme food insecurity;
2. 30% of children under the age of 5 (or 15% according to the MUAC score — see below) have to suffer from acute malnutrition;
3. There are at least two non-trauma deaths per 10,000 population per day.

Critics, however, point to several issues with the report’s methodology as well as its reliance on mechanisms that appear to contradict the IPC’s established standards.

These apparent failings include:

• In determining acute malnutrition among children under the age of five, the IPC relies on a measurement of the circumference of the mid-upper arm (MUAC), as opposed to the more reliable weight-for-height score. While MUAC can be relied upon in cases of necessity (for which Gaza might qualify), it is “limited to classifying Phase 4 (Emergency), not Phase 5 (Famine).” Thus, the MUAC measurements could not be used to raise the Gaza Governorate from a Phase 4 to a Phase 5 (which is what occurred in this report).
• The IPC is required to take into account the context surrounding the area that is under observation. In pre-war Gaza, the prevalence of MUAC was significantly higher than that of weight-for-height rates (which is the reverse of what usually occurs). Thus, the lower MUAC threshold for determining a food-related emergency should have been viewed as less relevant due to this pre-war anomaly among Gaza’s children.
• The IPC’s claim of a 16% malnutrition rate among children under the age of 5 is based on only a partial sample of July’s data. On August 6, a full data set was released, showing a malnutrition rate of 12.2%. Nevertheless, the IPC did not incorporate this updated information into its findings.
• The report relies heavily on hospital records, which skews the results due to the focus on sicker children and the exclusion of healthy children. This is why the IPC generally does not use hospital records in determining acute malnutrition, but relies on community-based records. By mainly relying on hospital records, the IPC has acted in contravention of its own guidelines.

¹ The biggest problem with the Gaza City bogus “famine” designation isn’t that IPC used MUAC or the 15% threshold.

The real scandal is that Gaza City’s malnutrition rate in July never actually crossed 15%.

This is huge – yet it’s barely being talked about.

— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) August 23, 2025

• One of the main sources upon which the IPC relied to determine food insecurity was surveys of lists of UNICEF cash aid recipients. As the Hamas Ministry of Social Development helps decide who will receive this cash aid, this possibly skews the results towards those who are loyal to Hamas or are the sickest or poorest within the area. Thus, the IPC relied upon unreliable survey results to determine food insecurity.
• As the mortality threshold had not been crossed according to the official malnutrition deaths provided by Hamas, the IPC assumed that many malnutrition deaths had gone unreported. The IPC claimed that, on average, there have been six malnutrition-related deaths per day according to official sources. To cross the mortality threshold to declare a famine, there would have to be roughly 130 malnutrition-related deaths per day in the Gaza Governorate (with a population of roughly 650,000). It is absurd to claim that there are over 20 times more malnutrition-related deaths per day than what has been reported by the Hamas authorities.
• While the IPC has some leeway to estimate the mortality rate when it is difficult to obtain that information on the ground, the previous mortality rate usually approaches the threshold, and it can be logically assumed that, with worsening conditions and with the lapse of time, the threshold has been passed. In this instance, none of this applies, as the mortality rate for the Gaza Governorate was nowhere near the threshold prior to its classification as a famine, and Israel has taken steps to mitigate the humanitarian crisis.

The Anti-Israel Voices Behind the Report

Aside from the many questions surrounding the famine report’s methodology and seeming failure to uphold IPC standards, another worrying aspect is the inclusion of two biased anti-Israeli academics among the authors of the report.

The first, Andrew Seal, is an associate professor in international nutrition at the Centre for Climate Change, Migration, Conflict, and Health at University College London — Institute for Global Health.

When he is not lecturing on international nutrition, Seal is busy on social media, defending Houthi attacks against international shipping, accusing Israel of apartheid, comparing Israel to Hamas, accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza (as far back as October 28, 2023), and spreading Iranian regime propaganda.

Meet Andrew Seal, one of the experts behind the IPC’s new “Gaza famine” report.

A Senior Lecturer at University College London, Andrew is a fanatical anti-Israel activist who was already crying “genocide” as early as October 28, 2023.

But that’s not all  pic.twitter.com/QS1t2QcRuw

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) August 23, 2025

The second anti-Israel academic, Zeina Jamaluddine, is an assistant professor of the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Jamaluddine co-authored a study on the death toll in Gaza that was published in The Lancet in early 2025 but was heavily criticized for its faulty methodology and politically driven agenda.

As part of this study, Jamaluddine and her team were trusted with exclusive access to data by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

Jamaluddine has also described Israeli attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon as “terror,” has called for an end to war due to her perception of a humanitarian crisis since at least October 16, 2023 (9 days after the Hamas massacre and prior to the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza), and advocated “de-colonization” in the context of Israel and Gaza.

7/ Another co-author is Zeina Jamaluddine. Check out her very neutral feed:https://t.co/kSEmEwaVFH

She’s an activist “researcher” to whom the Hamas Ministry of Health granted VIP “data” access:https://t.co/RkVACGeYhKhttps://t.co/Wa9JvvrkaM

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 23, 2025

With the addition of Seal and Jamaluddine to the list of experts who composed the Gaza famine report, it is no wonder that this study

• Traded in neutral tones for emotive language;
• Ignored Israeli steps to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza;
• Turned a blind eye to Hamas’ role in obstructing the delivery of aid to innocent Palestinians; and
• Viewed the crisis in Gaza as having only one solution — an immediate ceasefire that would leave Hamas in power, and the fate of the Israeli hostages unknown.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.