A newly released UN-led nutrition survey of Gaza's children completely shatters the narrative promoted by advocacy organisations that continue to claim that its population – and children, in particular – is being deliberately starved. Equally important, it also deals a final blow to the highly controversial "famine" designation issued one year ago by the Famine Review Committee of the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system.
The survey, carried out under the coordination of the Nutrition Cluster – the UNICEF-led body that runs Gaza’s nutrition-surveillance system – measured the children’s weight, height and mid-upper-arm circumference. The data were then used to calculate the weight-for-height z-score, or WHZ – the standard indicator used by the World Health Organisation and other bodies to compare levels of acute malnutrition across populations and over time.
Contrary to the prevailing narrative, the survey found that acute malnutrition measured by WHZ ranged from merely 0.2 to 0.8 per cent across Gaza’s regions. For comparison, Gaza’s pre-war rate was 0.8 per cent – an already relatively low rate comparable to those seen in developed countries and well below those reported in nearby countries such as Egypt (2.9 per cent) or Jordan (2.0 per cent). In other words, the measured level of acute malnutrition is not only well below critical levels – it is exceptionally low by both regional and even Western standards.
The new findings don’t just completely debunk the latest iteration of the relentless narrative claiming Israel isn’t allowing enough food into Gaza – they also undermine the key argument used to justify the original famine declaration, which advocacy groups still cite as their evidentiary anchor.
To formally declare a Phase 5 "Famine", as the IPC did in August 2025, one required key condition is that at least 30 per cent of children under the age of five show acute malnutrition as measured by WHZ. Since WHZ data were not available for Gaza when famine was declared last year, the IPC relied instead on the more readily available mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) measurement. It further argued, on the basis of earlier global comparisons between the two indicators, that WHZ generally identifies roughly twice as many cases of acute malnutrition as MUAC, and hence that a much lower MUAC prevalence of 15 per cent could supposedly be treated as equivalent to the 30 per cent WHZ famine threshold.
As I wrote at the time in the Jewish Chronicle, this assumption was questionable even before any new data came out. The approximately 2-to-1 relationship between the two indicators invoked by the IPC was derived largely from comparisons involving countries in Africa, where WHZ frequently produces substantially higher malnutrition estimates than MUAC. However, evidence from the Middle East suggested that this relationship did not generally hold in the region. Moreover, some limited earlier data from Gaza itself indicated that it might actually be reversed there, with MUAC rates higher than WHZ rates rather than lower. In other words, there was no justification for treating a 15 per cent MUAC figure as “equivalent” to the 30 per cent WHZ famine threshold.
The new Nutrition Cluster survey now supplies the conclusive local comparison between the two malnutrition indicators and shows that the IPC’s central assumption was indeed wrong: WHZ rates in Gaza are not twice the MUAC rates – in fact, in this survey, they are consistently lower than MUAC rates in every area measured.
The 2-to-1 ratio on which the IPC relied to justify its controversial 15 per cent “famine” threshold simply does not hold. And once that assumption collapses, so does the statistical basis for concluding that Gaza had crossed the catastrophic malnutrition threshold – a claim that was key to the August 2025 famine classification.
Advocacy groups continue to describe Gaza's children as facing a starvation crisis engineered by deliberate policy. The new nutritional data – collected under UN supervision using the same rigorous methodology applied in humanitarian settings worldwide – flatly contradict that narrative.
Malnutrition in Gaza today is not just low; it is at or below where it stood before the war and much lower than in nearby Egypt or Jordan. Moreover, the same findings also completely destroy the already shaky foundation on which last year’s “famine” designation was built.
Many researchers, including myself, argued at the time that the famine label was incompatible with what the data actually showed. Now, the UN’s own findings show unequivocally that our criticism was, indeed, correct.
Dr Mark Zlochin is a researcher and data analyst
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