The situation in Gaza has reached a “breaking point” from which it may not return, the World Food Programme (WFP) declared in a desperate appeal, stating “enough is enough” and demanding an end to a famine that Israel continues to deny through official statements and paid social media campaigns.
The executive director of the WFP, Cindy McCain, visited Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, where she toured a clinic for malnourished children and met displaced mothers struggling daily to find scraps of food. “I met starving children barely surviving on malnutrition,” she said, “and I saw photos of them when they were healthy. Today, compared to those photos, they are unrecognizable.” Her testimony stands in stark opposition to recent Israeli propaganda, which involved influencers being invited to ‘confirm’ that ‘famine in Gaza does not exist’ and a flood of paid social media ads depicting gourmet foods that Israel claims are plentiful in the Strip.
According to McCain, the famine in Gaza is worsening daily. She urgently called for the restoration of the WFP’s original network of 200 food distribution points, which has been replaced by the controversial U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The UN agency’s distribution centers report daily casualties from gunfire. At one in Rafah, several people, including a child, were reported missing. A group of UN experts, including five members of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and her counterpart on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, denounced the incident as an “atrocious crime,” allegations the GHF denies.
UN Secretary-General Guterres insisted the famine in the Strip “is no longer an looming possibility; it is a current catastrophe.” He stated, “Israel, as the occupying power, has clear obligations: it must ensure the provision of food, water, medicine, and other essential goods, facilitate much broader humanitarian access, protect civilians, and stop the destruction of what is indispensable for the population’s survival.” Israel has labeled the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, which officially confirmed the famine in Gaza, a “fraud” and has demanded its withdrawal, threatening to ask donor governments to cut funding.