As readers no doubt recall, when the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared a famine in Gaza City on August 22nd 2025, the BBC gave extensive and uncritical coverage to its report:
BBC COVERAGE OF THE IPC GAZA CITY FAMINE REPORT – PART ONE
BBC COVERAGE OF THE IPC GAZA CITY FAMINE REPORT – PART TWO
Despite that extensive promotion, in the eight weeks since its publication, the BBC has made no effort whatsoever to independently analyse that report’s much criticised methodology, to inform its audiences of the findings of people who did conduct such analyses or to produce any serious reporting on the relevant topic of the IPC’s response to criticisms.
As noted by the Center for Medical Integrity, the definition of famine includes three factors:
“‘Famine’ (Phase 5) requires three pillars to meet thresholds: (1) extreme food consumption deficits; (2) global acute malnutrition (GAM) at ≥30% or severe wasting at ≥10% (area-level); and (3) non-trauma crude death rate (CDR) ≥2/10,000/day (≥4/10,000/day for under-5s). “
Just days after the IPC’s report was released, Mark Zlochin explained that as follows:
“In IPC terms, famine doesn’t just mean “a lot of hunger”. It’s the rarest and most extreme category, reserved only for the worst cases where three conditions are all met at once: very high child malnutrition, where a large share of young children are dangerously thin; unusually high death rates, clearly linked to hunger or disease; and collapse of household food access – families can’t reliably get food, they are skipping meals, going whole days without eating, or exhausting all ways of coping.
All three must be true, together, for the word famine to be used. That’s what makes it so rare and so serious.”
On the topic of unusually high death rates, he continued:
“The IPC analysis quietly admitted that reported deaths were below the famine threshold, but then suggested that many deaths might not have been counted. What they did not spell out is just how enormous the gap really was.
For Gaza City, the famine line would have meant about 180 excess deaths every single day from hunger or related disease. The actual reported figure was about six deaths per day across the entire Strip – nowhere near the threshold. Even if every one of those deaths had been in Gaza City, the rate would still have been more than 30 times lower than the famine threshold.
Of course, in any war zone some deaths may go unreported. But to claim that actual excess mortality was 30 times higher than the numbers on record is an extraordinary leap.”
In the weeks after the IPC report was released, fatality numbers provided by the Hamas-run ministry of health in the Gaza Strip (along with other criteria) showed that the threshold for declaring famine was still not being met.
On October 9th Sky News reported that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed that 461 people had died from malnutrition in the two years since the beginning of the war, including 192 since the IPC declared famine on August 22nd. Under actual famine conditions, the expected number of deaths during that period of time would be 9,522.
Remarkably, that discrepancy has been of no interest whatsoever to the BBC, which continues to promote the famine narrative (along with the no less redundant ‘genocide’ libel) on a regular basis. Recent examples include the following:
“Israel deports Greta Thunberg and 170 other Gaza flotilla activists” David Gritten, 6/10/25
“The GSF’s boats set sail from Barcelona at the end of last month after experts from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed there was a famine in Gaza City, and warned that it could spread to central and southern Gaza within weeks.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 460 Palestinians have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war, including 182 since the famine declaration. […]
Israel has insisted it acts in accordance with international law and facilitates the entry of aid.
It has also disputed the IPC’s findings and the health ministry’s figures, and strongly denied the allegation – most recently made by a UN commission of inquiry – that its forces have committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
“Israeli forces intercept new aid flotilla bound for Gaza” Dearbail Jordan, 8/10/25
“Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 460 Palestinians have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war, including 182 since the declaration of a famine in Gaza City, which has been at the centre of an Israeli military campaign in recent weeks.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which is backed by the United Nations, confirmed there was a famine in Gaza City and warned that it could spread within weeks.
Israel disputes the IPC’s findings. It insists that it acts in accordance with international law and facilitates the entry of aid into Gaza.”
“Progress in Gaza peace talks as Trump says ‘very close to deal’” Rushdi Abualouf and David Gritten, 8/10/25
“The ministry has said another 460 people have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war, including 182 since a famine was confirmed in Gaza City in August by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza and said Israel is facilitating deliveries of food and other aid.”
“Ceasefire comes into force as Israel’s military pulls out of parts of Gaza” Alys Davies, 10/10/25
“A famine was declared in part of the territory for the first time in August by UN-backed experts, who said more than 500,000 people were facing “catastrophic” conditions characterised by “starvation, destitution and death”.
Israel has repeatedly denied that there is starvation in the territory. […]
The UN commission of inquiry and leading experts have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza during the course of the war.
Israel has categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.”
“Israelis praise Trump at huge rally ahead of expected hostage release by Hamas in Gaza” Alice Cuddy and Jaroslav Lukiv, 12/10/25
“A recent report by the world’s leading hunger monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the UN, estimated that 500,000 people in Gaza – a quarter of the territory’s population – were suffering from famine.
Israel has repeatedly denied that starvation is taking place in Gaza, and Netanyahu has said that where there is hunger, it is the fault of aid agencies and Hamas.”
The BBC has had eight weeks in which to explain to its audiences how that August 22nd IPC report was based on extremely problematic methodology and why its claim of famine is unsupported by the data. As we see, rather than making any attempt to provide its audiences with accurate and impartial reporting on that very serious issue, the corporation has not only ignored it but continues to promote the IPC’s ‘findings’, at best with some sort of accompanying reference to ‘Israeli denials’ in order to tick the ‘impartiality’ box.
Likewise, the BBC has had well over a month in which to inform to its audiences that the “leading experts” who “accused Israel of committing genocide” on September 1st were in fact anyone with $30 to spare – but has not done so.
Neither have BBC audiences been told anything useful about the political motivations behind the UN commission of inquiry’s ‘genocide’ accusation that the corporation has been promoting since September 16th.
While BBC coverage of the multi-front wars that Israel has been fighting for the past two years has often fallen well short of the standards to which it is obliged to adhere, its self-conscription to politically motivated campaigns and uncritical promotion of the narratives supporting them must surely be one of the prime factors currently undermining trust in the corporation’s reporting.
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