Image source, Reuters

Famine has been confirmed in Gaza City and the surrounding area for the first time, according to a report by the UN-backed food security body Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC).

Half a million people in the territory are facing "starvation, destitution and death," reports the IPC, which expects the crisis to get worse in the coming weeks.

Gazan parents say their children are wasting away, teachers report students are light headed - and everyone is talking about soaring food prices.

UN Secretary General António Guterres calls it "a failure of humanity".

The IPC, along with many international aid agencies, describes the famine as a "man-made" catastrophe. Some say it has been deliberately engineered by the Israeli military.

Israel strongly denies these allegations, saying there is no famine in Gaza and that it has significantly increased aid deliveries.

The country also says the IPC used unreliable data controlled by Hamas, and accuses the body of changing its methodology - something both the IPC and food security experts reject as false.

Gaza City is now facing a renewed Israeli offensive, with troops operating on its outskirts as part of a plan to take control of the city.

There have been peace talks between Israel and Hamas, but key differences remain. While Hamas has agreed to a proposal by mediators for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for releasing half of the remaining hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently rejected this, saying he has instructed negotiations to begin for the release of all remaining hostages.

We're ending our live coverage here. For now, you can read a selection of some more of our reports below:

• Famine confirmed in Gaza City for first time, UN-backed report says
• 'My youngest child doesn't know what fruit tastes like'
• Gaza City will be razed if Hamas does not agree our terms, Israel minister says

Image source, Uriel Even Sapir/Hostages and Missing Families Forum/X

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents many Israeli hostages' relatives, has held a Shabbat gathering outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, aiming to draw attention to their campaign about the hostages still held by Hamas.

The group says they have "one clear demand". "Prime Minister Netanyahu, leave the Shabbat table and move to the negotiating table."

Photos shared by the group show images of the remaining hostages taped to chairs around the table, while those gathered held up posters in protest.

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting throughout the day, the UN-backed food security body IPC has confirmed there is a famine in Gaza City and the surrounding area.

Israel has strongly denied this.

Here's a reminder of what they've said:

• The prime minister of Israel called the report an "outright lie". "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," it said
• Earlier, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the IPC had published a "tailor-made fabricated report to fit Hamas’s fake campaign"
• Separately, Israeli trade envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum told BBC the findings were based on "partial and not full data"

Throughout the day, we've been hearing from various third sector organisations in response to the IPC's findings.

The head of Médecins Sans Frontières' emergency response in Gaza, Amande Bazerolle, has repeated calls for a ceasefire.

"You couldn't imagine something more cynical: people being starved as the Israeli forces invade and destroy any life that remains. This will lead to a complete and utter humanitarian disaster," she says.

Oxfam says it has got more than $2.5m (£1.85m) of aid, including high-calorie food packages, in warehouses outside Gaza - but Israeli authorities have "rejected it".

A British nurse with UK-Med, Mandy Blackman, points out that 70% of mothers attending their clinics have "clinical malnutrition". It means babies are being delivered smaller and more vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross called the declaration of famine a "stark and urgent signal" of the needs people in Gaza are facing.

"The humanitarian consequences are devastating and entirely foreseeable," a spokesperson said.

• As a reminder, Israel's foreign ministry has rejected today's IPC report and previously denied that there is starvation in Gaza

Here’s another local voice heard by BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline, describing being displaced in Gaza multiple times.

One man from Gaza City says: “The hardest thing in history is when you get a call from an Israeli officer, or a leaflet drops on you from the sky telling you to evacuate the area you are in and move towards Wadi Gaza or south of the Gaza Strip.

“This is equivalent to the soul leaving the body.”

He says he and his family have experienced displacement before, earlier in the war, having to leave on foot without cars or anything, and walking over 40km (25 miles).

“You sleep for nights on the street, you can’t find a bathroom, you can’t find food or drink, and you have little ones with you.”

For him, that’s “the height of misery and the height of humiliation for a human being”.

As a reminder, Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza to report freely. The BBC relies on local journalists on the ground to hear what’s happening in the Palestinian territory. They’ve sent us an update from Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Rida Hijjeh's daughter Lamia is five-and-a-half years old. She has been in hospital for two weeks.

She says Lamia used to weigh three stone (19.5kg) but now weighs half that.

"Because of the famine and the siege, this is what happened to her. She lost weight," she says.

"There is simply nothing for the child to eat. There are no vegetables, no fruits.

"My daughter ended up eating preserved foods, canned food full of salts. And now she suffers from blood salt imbalances, from the preservatives she used to eat."

Lamia has symptoms including swelling in her legs and thinning hair, Rida explains, and she is unable to walk.

"My daughter says to me in the morning: ‘Mama, bring me a cucumber.’ And I swear I don’t have the means to get it for her. I told her, ‘Be patient, sweetheart, just wait a little, your father will call and bring it himself. Just wait a bit.’"

Ethar Shalaby
BBC News Arabic

Somaya Kafarna has been suffering from thyroid cancer for the last three years.

She says her health has deteriorated rapidly due to malnutrition rather than the cancer - from lack of food rather than lack of medicine.

"I feel that I will die from starvation rather than cancer," she says, who adds that she currently weighs five stone (32kg) after being 11 stone before the war started.

Somaya lives with another 20 people in a damaged house in Gaza - all of them rely on a single can of lentils and some small pieces of bread.

"We open the can every morning. Heat it up and share it between ourselves. If we are lucky enough, we can have a cup of sweetened tea," she says.

Other than cancer patients, children seem to be paying the biggest price of starvation.

Jawad Borek says his seven-year-old daughter now weighs just under two stone due to severe malnutrition.

"I am losing Amaal, my daughter, every day. She looks like a skeleton. Hospitals tell me she needs to eat, not medicines. They have nothing to do for her," he says.

Michael Fakhri, a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, tells the BBC News channel that the findings in the IPC report confirm Israel is pursuing a policy of deliberate starvation in Gaza.

He says Israel has been "destroying Gaza's food system unabated".

Fakhri also says Israel uses aid as a military tactic, "baiting civilians and then shooting and killing civilians".

Israel denies there is a policy of deliberate starvation. "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation," the country's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said today.

Alice Cuddy
Senior international reporter

“I’m really stressed out. We didn’t cook today, the water truck didn’t arrive, and I don’t have any money. I’m mentally exhausted.”

This is a recent WhatsApp message I received from a widowed mother of four in a displacement camp in central Gaza.

The IPC says famine has now been confirmed in Gaza City, but people across the territory have been telling me about their struggles to feed their families recently.

Doaa tells me she cannot afford the highly inflated prices at the markets and is too afraid to go searching for aid.

When she can get food for her young family - usually lentils that she makes into soup - she says she sometimes doesn’t eat so that her children can have more.

“I have a little child who needs food and cannot bear the hunger,” she says.

“We see our children starving and we cannot do anything. There is no source of income and no food.”

Elsewhere in Gaza, people explained that even finding the fuel to cook with was extremely difficult.

A medical student in the south of the Strip told me her family used wood retrieved from their bombed home to cook on, while a man in the north said he could no longer afford firewood so was now burning plastic to cook his meals.

Image source, Anadolu/Getty Images

The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has also responded to the IPC report.

The PA, which governs parts of the West Bank not under Israeli control, says the report has "closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine".

This, the foreign ministry says, leaves "no room for maneuvering by states and the world" and suggests that more international support for the region is now needed.

"It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence."

As reported earlier, Israel has denied the IPC's report, with Netanyahu describing it as an "outright lie".

Image source, Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the IPC report as an "outright lie".

In a statement published by his office, Netanyahu says: "Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation."

He adds that since October 2023 Israel has "enabled two million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person".

Netanyahu says food prices in Gaza have "plunged because of Israel’s surge in humanitarian aid", accusing the report of failing to mention this "collapse in prices".

"Like all previous IPC reports, this one ignores Israel’s humanitarian efforts and Hamas’s systematic theft. Hamas steals aid to finance its war machine," the statement says.

• You can read our earlier post for a quick look at what the IPC report has said

Many people in Gaza City say they're worried about having to make another long, exhausting journey to the south of the strip, as Israel's military operation expands.

BBC Arabic's Gaza Lifeline has heard from some people affected.

"This issue has heavily burdened the residents here in the Gaza Strip, especially since it is extremely costly," a woman living in Gaza City says.

"Today, we are talking about transportation, which, in light of the fuel scarcity, is extremely expensive. You need huge sums of money just to move from one area to another. Also, establishing a new life in areas that might be devoid of services is also an exhausting and costly matter."

"We can say almost 70% we might face displacement," says a man living in the famine-struck city. "Just as we experienced in previous displacements, we have been displaced more than 13 times from one place to another."

"We expect that the displacement this time will be harder and more severe than before because this time it will be impossible for us, as there are no places left in Gaza to go to.

In its latest update, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says troops are "operating on the outskirts of Gaza City", where they're "locating and dismantling terrorist infrastructure above and underground".

The IDF says that over the past day, its forces "eliminated terrorists and struck a structure used by terrorists for military activity and to store weapons" in the Zeitoun area of the city.

It also says troops are "operating simultaneously" in the Jabalia area to "eliminate terrorists and dismantle terrorist infrastructure sites".

Image source, Reuters

The IPC's confirmation that famine is happening in Gaza City comes as the Israeli prime minister tells soldiers he’s approving military plans to take control of the area.

Speaking to BBC’s World at One, Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram warns that the starving population in Gaza’s most populated area will have nowhere to go if this happens.

“We’re talking about a potential military escalation in an area that has just been classified as a famine area,” she says. “The people there are beyond exhausted; they do not have the capacity to move.”

And unless international organisations respond to the IPC report, she warns we’re going to see tens of thousands more children need life-saving treatment for acute malnutrition - or risk dying.

Shaima al-Obaidi, senior media manager at Save the Children, says it "weighs heavy to sit here and tell you this [famine] announcement is not a surprise".

Speaking to the BBC, al-Obaidi says she was in Gaza when aid was suddenly cut off during Ramadan, on 2 March.

The day before, there had been "such a buzz in the office that lettuce was finally in the market and there was a discussion of what salad they were going to make that day to break their fast".

"Within days, any sort of protein, meat, was not available. Within weeks there was no fresh fruit and no fresh vegetables, and within a month there was no flour, and if there was flour available it was three times the usual price," she says.

"People were eating grass, they were eating leaves," she adds, saying children told her "they wish they would die so they could go to heaven and eat food".

Yousra Abu Sharekh is the Gaza programme co-ordinator with the US-based International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance. She lives in Gaza City with her two sons, aged 12 and 7.

Speaking to Newshour on the BBC World Service earlier today, she said everyone is experiencing malnutrition - people haven't had access to "nutritious food" like meat, eggs and fruit for five months.

She says children are "paying the highest price of this conflict".

Sharekh's youngest son needs protein - she says his symptoms of malnutrition are clear.

"He cannot survive on bread, he cannot survive on only pasta - the only limited options that we have," she tells the BBC. "It's killing me."

Listen to the full interview on the World Service.

Image source, Reuters

David Lammy has condemned the "wholly preventable" famine in Gaza City as "utterly horrifying".

In a statement, the UK foreign secretary says: "The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage."

Lammy urges Israel to "immediately and sustainably" allow unrestricted access to food, medical supplies, fuel and humanitarian aid - and to let the UN and aid agencies "operate without obstruction".

"We desperately need an immediate ceasefire, to enable aid delivery at maximum speed and at the scale required."

"The UK reiterates its condemnation of this military action, which will only worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation and endanger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas. We urge the Israeli government to change course and halt its plans," he adds.

Clinical nutrition specialist Suzan Mohammed Marouf works at the Patient's Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza City.

She tells the BBC there's been a rise in malnutrition cases. On one day, she says, they received 11 cases and had to put two children in the same bed because of a lack of resources.

"For children under six months, we encourage breastfeeding, but often the mother’s health condition is not good, so she can't provide her baby with full breastfeeding and is forced to use infant formula. This is also unavailable, which leads to malnutrition in children, and in even more severe forms.

"If the situation continues as it is, with severe malnutrition spreading, we will lose many cases due to shortages of medicines and supplements.

"We have already lost a large number of patients, and the number keeps increasing. If the situation remains unchanged, it will lead to more deaths."

Hamas has issued a statement calling for an end to the war in Gaza and "immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege".

It also demands that crossings are opened "without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water, and fuel".

Hamas accuses Israel of using "starvation as a weapon of war", which it says is a "war crime and crime of genocide under international law".

The statement also urges Arab, Muslim and other nations to put pressure on Israel to ensure urgent aid can get into Gaza.

Israel has denied there is a famine in Gaza, and also denies using starvation as a weapon. The country has repeatedly accused Hamas of stealing aid.

Image source, Reuters

Israeli trade envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum says the IPC's findings, which led to its confirmation of famine in Gaza City, are "based on partial and not full data".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, Hassan-Nahoum stresses that the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has distributed 150 million meals in the last few months - data she says has not been taken into consideration.

Aid groups have said they're alarmed by almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed near GHF sites since the group took over from the UN aid distribution mechanism in May.

The IPC report says that, while food distributions by the GHF do not meet the criteria to be classified as humanitarian assistance by the IPC, the shipments made by them have been taken into "full account" during the review process.

In BBC Newshour, Hassan-Nahoum also emphasises that, while there is "food insecurity as there would be in any war", there is no famine in Gaza.