The United Nations declares famine in Gaza, but its performance hides decades of complicity: Hamas theft, UNRWA corruption, and the strange silence over greater famines elsewhere.
In a Nutshell
On 22 August 2025, the United Nations declared famine in Gaza. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed over half a million people in northern Gaza are in “catastrophic” food insecurity. UNICEF added that at least 18,000 children have died since October 2023, 28 every day.
The Secretary-General called it “a failure of humanity.” Yet famine is rarely a force of nature in the modern world. It is political, deliberate, or at best allowed to happen. In Gaza, it is the consequence of Hamas seizing food, UNRWA enabling theft, and donor governments refusing to impose reform. The declaration is less a warning than a confession: the system failed, and those who designed it are now its mourners.
The Background
Famines once stalked Europe. Ireland in the 1840s, engineered by imperial neglect. Ukraine in the 1930s, Stalin’s Holodomor, a famine imposed to break a people. By the late 20th century, famine became synonymous with state collapse: Ethiopia in the 1980s, Somalia in the 1990s, South Sudan more recently.
Gaza does not belong in this company. It has not been abandoned by the world. It has been smothered with aid. Billions have poured in for decades. UNRWA, OCHA, WHO, WFP all with offices, fleets of vehicles, and rows of salaried staff. Gaza, by any rational measure, should have been famine-proof.
That famine has come here reveals not absence of aid, but its capture.
The Reality on the Ground
This famine is not caused by climate or failed harvest. It is caused by theft and corruption.
Hamas has hijacked convoys and sold flour on the black market. Fuel meant for hospitals has been diverted to tunnels. Cement meant for reconstruction has been poured into bunkers. UNRWA staff have looked away, or worse, been complicit. The infrastructure of survival has become the infrastructure of war.
This is not speculation. In 2017, UNRWA itself admitted it had discovered tunnels beneath two of its schools. For years, Israel insisted food and supplies were being stolen. Donor governments knew. Nothing changed.
The Mainstream Media View
BBC: “UN agencies declare Gaza famine, a shared international failure.”
The Guardian: “Evidence of Israel’s siege deepens.”
Sky News: “Humanity has abandoned Gaza.”
CNN: “Children starve as famine declared.”
The script is familiar. The villain is chosen. The accomplices vanish into the wings.
The Forgotten Stories
While Gaza commands declarations and headlines, greater crises linger without fanfare.
- Sudan: The UN itself estimates 7 million people face famine conditions amid ethnic cleansing in Darfur. No famine declaration.
- Ethiopia (Tigray): Years after war, thousands remain starved, ignored.
- Yemen: Between 2015 and 2018, UNICEF calculated 85,000 children under five died of hunger. No front-page lament.
The pattern is telling. When Israel can be accused, famine is news. Where no such villain is available, silence prevails.
António Guterres (22 Aug 2025):
“This famine is a failure of humanity.”
Source: UN NewsroomBBC Headline (22 Aug 2025):
“UN agencies declare Gaza famine, a shared international failure.”
Source: BBC News
The Merlow View
To understand Gaza’s famine, history matters. Famines are not natural in the 21st century; they are political. Lebanon’s famine during the First World War, the Holodomor in Ukraine, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Sudan’s endless weaponisation of hunger each famine reveals intent or complicity.
Gaza fits this lineage. Hamas used food as leverage. The UN became its patron through UNRWA. Western donors provided endless funding without accountability. When famine arrived, the UN spoke of “humanity” rather than naming itself.
There are two paths forward. The fantasy is that this declaration spurs reform: UNRWA dismantled, aid redirected with transparency, Hamas stripped of control. The rational view is sobering: nothing will change. Funds will flow again, the system will continue, and the next famine will be staged in the same theatre.
But clarity matters. If famine is man-made, responsibility is not diffused into “humanity.” It rests with institutions, leaders, and choices. History will not record Gaza 2025 as a natural tragedy. It will record it as a political betrayal.
It is tempting to nod along with talk of “shared failure” and “humanity’s shame.” But clarity begins with names, not slogans. Gaza’s famine is not a mystery it is the product of corruption, complicity, and cowardice. To see this clearly is to step outside the theatre. And only when enough people walk out will the performance end.
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