A United Nations-backed assessment has declared that famine conditions already exist in Gaza City and are spreading southward, marking the first officially recognised famine in the Middle East. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimates that 514,000 people—about one quarter of Gaza’s population—are facing catastrophic hunger and warns the figure could climb to 641,000 by the end of September. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the crisis “a man-made disaster” and urged an immediate cease-fire and unfettered aid access. Israel rejected the IPC findings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the report as an “outright lie,” and the Foreign Ministry said the assessment relied on flawed, Hamas-sourced data. The government’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories argued that market supplies are improving as more aid trucks enter the enclave. While maintaining a ban on international journalists entering Gaza, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry has paid American and Israeli social-media personalities to film at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution sites in an effort to counter allegations that its policies are causing starvation. Fighting and civilian casualties continue. Gaza’s Health Ministry said 61 Palestinians were killed and 308 injured in the past 24 hours, pushing the war’s death toll to 62,622. Medical sources reported that at least 11 of those killed on Saturday had been waiting for food aid, and a local television cameraman, Khaled Mohammad Al-Madhoon, was shot dead near the Zikim crossing while covering the unrest. Hospitals warn they are overwhelmed by trauma cases and malnutrition. The World Health Organization said more than 15,600 patients—including 3,800 children—need urgent evacuation for specialised treatment abroad. Gaza’s hospital directors appealed for international medical teams, safe corridors for medicines and desalination plants to address rising water salinity. UNRWA stated that its warehouses in Egypt and Jordan hold enough food, medicine and hygiene supplies to fill 6,000 trucks, but that Israeli restrictions on crossings prevent deliveries at the scale required. Aid groups, including UNICEF and Oxfam, said the famine can still be reversed if Israel allows continuous overland shipments and restores the United Nations’ wider network of 400 distribution points.