After the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared there was a famine in Gaza in August 2025, U.N. official Tom Fletcher delivered remarks full of self-righteous anger and sanctimony over Israel’s allegedly deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza.

Now Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon has demanded an apology in light of UNICEF’s findings that there was never acute child malnutrition in Gaza.

In order to make the famine declaration, the IPC changed the requirements. Unable to obtain a weight-to-height z-score (standard score, aka WHZ), the IPC used instead a measurement of upper arm circumference (MUAC). To declare a famine, 30 percent of children must fail to meet the WHZ score.

The IPC declared that since MUAC finds half the number of malnutrition cases, the MUAC number of 15 percent that it found really means 30 percent, and voilà! We have a famine in Gaza.

The new UNICEF study shattered the IPC’s narrative, finding that the rate of child malnutrition in Gaza was similar to that of developed countries during the war and significantly lower than that of its neighboring countries, Egypt and Jordan, in peacetime.

“A year ago, the IPC report determined that Gaza was facing a famine. Senior UN officials immediately backed the findings, and the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, even called the evidence ‘irrefutable,'” he wrote in a statement on X.

“Now, new UNICEF data paints a completely different picture. We are waiting for U.N. Relief Chief Fletcher’s apology and for the UN to explain itself,” he added.

Fletcher fired back, feigning disdain for what he called “clickbait,” portraying himself as above the fray.

“I’m (again) avoiding undignified clickbait exchange,” he scolded. “We reduced hunger from levels I spoke of last year because President Trump’s plan and support from region, US, Europe helped us get in 1m+ meals a day. I fully back UNICEF.”

“We won’t be distracted from saving lives,” he declared.

In May 2025, Tom Fletcher had predicted that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die from hunger in the next 48 hours, a prediction that failed to materialize.