Amnesty International urges Israel to halt Gaza City assault after famine declaration

Amnesty International has called on the Israeli military to immediately halt its offensive on Gaza City following the declaration of famine by the leading authority on food insecurity on Friday.

Amnesty's Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, Erika Guevara Rosas, said that the offensive "would not only lead to yet more mass violations of international humanitarian law, but would also deliberately, exponentially intensify the suffering of Palestinians already enduring starvation and rising death tolls from malnutrition".

"With every hour that passes without decisive international action, more Palestinian lives are lost, and Gaza City edges closer to complete annihilation," she added.

The declaration of famine made early on Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that 514,000 people are experiencing famine and that this was expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

It said that some 280,000 people were in the north of Gaza, including Gaza City, which it said was experiencing famine.

Reacting to the announcement, Guevara said that it "is a devastating confirmation of what humanitarian and human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have been warning of for months, and a scathing failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip."

She added that it is an "entirely man-made, deliberately orchestrated and preventable catastrophe."

Israel has denied the classification and called the report "fake and biased," adding that "there is no famine in Gaza," a line the state has held since the first accusations that Palestinians were starving in Gaza were made by aid agencies earlier this year.

Amnesty's call comes amid global outrage over Israel's plan to occupy Gaza City and the famine.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that an assault on the city would cause "massive death and destruction".

UN rights chief Volker Turk said "it is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare."

The UK has also expressed concern and condemned the Israeli government, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy saying, "the confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable."

"The Israeli government's refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage," he added.

273 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the enclave, including 112 children.

The genocidal war has killed 62,263 Palestinians since October 2023, and has utterly devastated the enclave.