“A Purely Manmade Famine”: How Israel Is Starving Gaza
The Intercept Briefing
The Intercept
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the Israeli government weighs, once again, expanding its genocidal military campaign in Gaza, the enclave is sliding into a full-scale famine.
“We're seeing a purely manmade famine,” says Bob Kitchen, vice president of emergencies at the International Rescue Committee. “The Gaza Strip is surrounded by very fertile farming territory. All of the countries around Gaza have more than enough food.”
This week on the Intercept Briefing, Intercept reporter Jonah Valdez speaks with Kitchen about what U.N.-backed hunger experts have called a “worst-case scenario.” Kitchen lays out how Israel’s ongoing war, combined with severe restrictions on humanitarian aid and commercial access, has created near-impossible conditions for food and medical supplies to enter Gaza — accelerating a crisis that could soon be irreversible.
“The only thing that's changed is the war, the restrictions on humanitarian aid, the restrictions on the market economy where commercial traffic can't get in,” says Kitchen. “That's the only thing that is driving the hunger right now.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I'm Jonah Valdez. |
| 0:07.0 | Since Israel began choking off aid to Gaza nearly six months ago, |
| 0:12.0 | UN-backed hunger experts issued their gravest warning yet, |
| 0:17.0 | that a worst-case famine scenario was unfolding. |
| 0:20.0 | There are three criteria that must be met for a famine to be officially declared. |
| 0:24.6 | Widespread extreme food shortages, high levels of acute malnutrition, |
| 0:29.6 | and the extent of malnutrition-related mortality. |
| 0:32.6 | The first two are evident. |
| 0:34.6 | The third is hard to confirm, but Palestinians in Gaza did not need this confirmation. |
| 0:41.8 | At least 18,000 children have been hospitalized for acute malnutrition since the beginning of this year. |
| 0:49.4 | The officials say the vast majority of malnourished children can't reach medical care. At least |
| 0:55.6 | 175 people, 92 children and 82 adults have died of hunger in Gaza in recent weeks, according |
| 1:04.1 | to Gaza health officials. And over 1,500 people have been killed in the last few months while trying to access food, |
| 1:13.6 | many near distribution sites that were supposed to provide safety. |
| 1:19.6 | This is a crisis created by Israel's policy, one that aid organizations say could be solved, |
| 1:26.6 | to help us understand what's happening on the ground |
| 1:29.7 | and what it would take to address this crisis, |
| 1:32.7 | we're joined by Bob Kitchen from the International Rescue Committee. |
| 1:36.4 | He's the vice president of global emergency |
| 1:38.5 | and humanitarian actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. |
| 1:42.9 | Bob, thanks for joining us. |
| 1:44.5 | Thanks for having me. |
... |
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