From PBS NewsHour.

The world’s foremost authority on food insecurity and hunger crises officially declared Friday that a famine is taking place in parts of the Gaza Strip.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative backed by the United Nations, aid organizations and Western governments that provides food security and nutrition analysis, said that famine “is currently occurring” in Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City. The IPC said that famine is “projected to expand” southwest to two other governorates in the Gaza Strip – Deir al- Balah and Khan Younis – by the end of September.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC said in its snapshot report released Friday.

In a statement, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report “an outright lie.”

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