A U.N.-backed panel of experts on starvation has declared that Gaza is in the grip of famine. The announcement comes after nearly two years of war and Israeli restrictions on aid entering the territory, and as Israel prepares to launch a new offensive on Gaza City. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification raised its classification of conditions in Gaza to Phase 5, the highest level of its food insecurity scale, which the IPC says is “characterized by starvation, destitution and death.” The IPC report says half a million people are facing that level of starvation and warns that another 1.07 million people — over half the population of Gaza — are facing severe food deprivation.
Given the lack of outside access to Gaza, it’s likely that these numbers are an underestimate, according to NPR’s Jackie Northam. Israel has denied that there is a hunger crisis in Gaza, where it has been fighting Hamas since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Northam says the IPC support does not assign blame for the famine, but says a ceasefire is needed to end the war and flood the territory with aid. The aid group Mercy Corps has warned of famine in Gaza for months, and calls it a “man-made” famine that is a “direct result of months of deliberate restrictions on aid, the destruction of Gaza’s food, health, and water systems, and relentless bombardment.”
The House Oversight Committee is expected to receive hundreds of documents related to the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation today. This is in response to a congressional subpoena issued earlier this month calling on the DOJ to provide records of its probe. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has said some of the files will be made public after victims’ names are redacted.