Euro Med debunks Israel s narrative about famine in Gaza

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel continues to distort facts to absolve itself of the crime of starving civilians in the Gaza Strip, by selectively and misleadingly using data from UNICEF’s nutrition group for 2026, aiming to deny the famine indicators announced by the 2025 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

The monitor explained in a Monday statement that the 0.5% figure promoted by Israel is based solely on the ‘weight-for-height’ indicator for measuring acute malnutrition, while ignoring other more comprehensive indicators. Data from ‘mid-upper arm circumference’ shows a rate of 1.3%, which is the same when both indicators are calculated together, reflecting a deliberate attempt to obscure the full results and promote the lower number as the final result of the study.

It showed that this percentage practically means that one out of every 77 children under the age of five suffers from severe malnutrition during the study period, emphasizing that these data reflect a specific time frame and do not include previous or later cases or repeated relapses. The observatory pointed out that Israel ignored a key indicator in assessing children’s nutritional status, which is ‘stunting,’ which reached 12.2%, meaning about one in every eight children. This indicator reflects long-term nutritional deprivation and chronic stress, which cannot be measured by the limited wasting indicator that the Israeli account relied upon. In a related context, the observatory considered that the comparisons promoted by Israel between Gaza and countries like Germany and Finland represent statistical manipulation, as they relied on a single, separate indicator while taking data from different years, which removes any scientific or methodological value from this comparison. It also noted that the study included only 83% of Gaza’s population, while over 358,000 people were excluded due to security restrictions, making the nutritional status of this group