A recent UNICEF-led nutrition report in Gaza has challenged previous claims of famine, indicating acute malnutrition rates that are comparable to or substantially lower than those found in some neighboring countries. The U.S. State Department stated that these findings "completely shatters" allegations that Israel deliberately starved civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The UNICEF National Nutrition Cluster report, which surveyed 1,335 children under age 5 across 83% of the Gaza Strip, assessed malnutrition rates using weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) and mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC). WHZ figures showed malnutrition rates ranging from 0.2% in Khan Younis and Rafah to 0.8% in Gaza City. MUAC measurements found rates between 1.5% in Gaza City and 1.9% in Deir Al-Balah. Approximately 17% of the population could not be surveyed due to security and operational constraints.
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the UNICEF findings are "another example that completely shatters the countless false allegations against Israel of deliberate starvation of civilians in Gaza." The spokesperson added that "U.N. entities, media outlets and NGOs that should retract and correct their politicized and baseless attacks on Israel – which has provided an unprecedented over 2 million tons of food into Gaza since the ceasefire."
According to data shared by Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), acute malnutrition figures in the region ranged from 1.3% in Gaza, Lebanon, and Turkey to 2.3% in Jordan, 3.3% in Egypt, 12.2% in Syria, and 17.7% in Sudan. The report's findings have drawn attention in light of previous statements from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which had projected famine in Gaza by August 2025 and warned that over 132,000 children under 5 could suffer from acute malnutrition, with 41,000 severe cases at heightened risk of death.
The IPC is expected to release a full report on conditions in Gaza in the coming days. However, prior to this, they had assessed that the Gaza Strip would be in Phase 2, the "alert" phase for malnutrition, between July and December 2026, predicting that 74,200 children aged 6–59 months would require treatment for acute malnutrition through April 2027.
UNICEF's July report indicated that "very few confirmed nutrition-related deaths have been reported during treatment" in Gaza. When asked about the discrepancy with prior IPC claims, the IPC did not respond regarding their current stance on famine in Gaza or their previous statements.
Andrew Fox, a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, described the allegations of famine in Gaza as "pure hysteria," suggesting that any instances of hunger were likely distribution issues. He argued that international organizations have "removed Hamas and their share of the blame for Gaza’s suffering from the conversation, stoking the anti-Israel narrative."
Professor Aron Troen, director of the Nutrition and Brain Health Laboratory at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, called the UNICEF findings "very, very good news." He noted that the current measures in Gaza are "better than…other places in the Arab world," and emphasized the importance of acknowledging positive developments alongside negative ones. Troen also criticized "narratives" surrounding the report that he believes serve political agendas, suggesting that achieving a pragmatic transfer of agency to Palestinian governance requires an end to accusations of genocide and famine for political leverage.
However, Kurtis Cooper, Chief of Global Media at UNICEF, clarified that the recent nutrition survey measured conditions in mid-2026, over nine months after the IPC confirmed famine in August 2025 and following a ceasefire and a significant scale-up in humanitarian aid. Cooper stated that the survey "does not tell us what conditions were in August 2025, and it was never designed to." He explained that while malnutrition treatment admissions peaked at nearly 17,000 children in August 2025, they fell to around 3,100 by May 2026, attributing the improvement to the restoration of programs for detecting and treating malnutrition, which had been hampered by access constraints and supply disruptions.
Cooper did not provide comparative data on WHZ rates in Gaza versus other countries facing widespread human suffering, though UNICEF reported in May that nearly 100,000 children in Sudan were admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition between January and March 2026, with an estimate of 825,000 children under five expected to experience severe acute malnutrition in Sudan in 2026.
Fox called for a public retraction from organizations that published "error-strewn papers," stating that their mistakes have contributed to a global rise in antisemitism, which saw 2025 as the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks worldwide since 1994, according to the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism.