On August 22, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the foremost authority on global food security, confirmed that famine is ongoing in Gaza. The UN-backed body reported that more than half a million people in the Gaza Governorate, including Gaza City, are already starving. The IPC warned that famine will soon spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September. According to the IPC, 514,000 people, nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population, are in famine. The number is expected to rise to 641,000 in weeks.
This famine comes as Israel intensifies its genocidal war of extermination against Gaza, aimed at seizing the entire territory and displacing its people. The new campaign, called Operation Gideon’s Chariots II, has already begun with Israeli forces ordering hospitals in Gaza City to evacuate hundreds of injured patients, including children, women, and the elderly, many of whom are already starving and near death.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the genocidal campaign, with hundreds more slaughtered daily in Israeli bombings, including near the US and Israeli backed “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” aid sites. These GHF sites have become death traps, where starving Palestinians are lured with food only to be massacred by Israeli forces. The real death toll is far higher than reported, with bodies lying scattered on roads, entire families buried under rubble, and countless victims never registered due to constant bombardment.
Israel’s war of extermination targets not only civilians but also civil defence workers, hospitals, and journalists with complete impunity. On August 10, Israeli forces bombed tents outside the main gate of al-Shifa Hospital where Al Jazeera journalists were reporting. The strike wiped out the entire media team in Gaza City, including the prominent journalist Anas al-Sharif, along with several other reporters.
On August 25, a deadly double-tap bombing struck Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis—first hitting the fourth floor, then striking again as rescue workers and journalists rushed in. Among the 22 civilians killed were five journalists: Hussam al-Masri (Reuters contractor), Mariam Abu Dagga (AP freelancer), Mohammed Salama (Al Jazeera), Moaz Abu Taha (freelance/Reuters), and Ahmed Abu Aziz (Middle East Eye/Quds News Network).
The Israel's assault on Gaza is part of a broader settler-colonial project. In the occupied West Bank, Israel is fast-tracking new settlements to seize more Palestinian land. A new settlement plan aims to cut the West Bank in two around the E1 corridor. The E1 zone is of strategic importance as it connects Ramallah in the north with Bethlehem in the south. By bisecting the West Bank, Israel seeks to destroy the last geographical continuity of Palestinian territory.
What is unfolding today is genocide before the eyes of the world. Israel, backed and armed by US imperialism and with European complicity, is using famine, bombing, and displacement to annihilate the Palestinian people. Yet the steadfastness of Gaza’s people, resisting in the face of death, continues to expose the brutality of Zionism and the bankruptcy of imperialism.
