Overview

• The IPC’s July 29 report substituted mid-upper arm circumference for its usual weight-for-height measurement and cut the child wasting threshold from 30% to 15%.
• City-level MUAC figures indicated under 8% acute malnutrition in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis and 16.5% in Gaza City, levels critics say fall short of historic famine criteria.
• The alert drew on non-public “internal documents” and data from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and affiliated local groups, raising verification and transparency concerns.
• Veteran aid workers and analysts, including Richard Goldberg, have publicly denounced the methodological change as scientifically unsound and politically driven.
• The IPC has not responded to inquiries about its revised standards as scrutiny over its data sources and famine finding intensifies.