United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Coordinator Tom Fletcher gestures as he leaves after a press conference in Geneva, on August 22, 2025. "It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," Tom Fletcher told reporters, calling it "a famine that will and must haunt us all". The United Nations on August 22, 2025 officially declared a famine in Gaza, the first in the Middle East, with its experts saying 500,000 people were facing "catastrophic" hunger. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)