evidence: An international committee of experts issued a dire warning about Gaza this week: Famine is now "imminent" in northern Gaza and a risk across the entire territory. Yet they also found that about 30% of the population – some 667,000 people – are currently experiencing "catastrophic" levels of hunger, meaning those individuals have so little food they are effectively starving. So why stop short of declaring the situation a famine already? And who are these experts that get to decide? [...] It's also not enough for either FEWS NET or the IPC to find that the three criteria for famine have been met. Before they can formally classify a location as being in phase five, they are obligated to submit their evidence to a review committee of experts specially convened for that purpose by the IPC. In the case of the latest reports on Gaza, IPC and FEWS NET had produced separate though very similar analyses, and the review committee considered and signed off on both simultaneously. [...] Indeed, the IPC's report on Gaza estimates that in northern Gaza about 70% of people are now facing "catastrophic" levels of food insecurity. The report also finds that "it's highly likely" the threshold for acute malnutrition among children has just been reached, and it concludes that unless urgent steps are taken, the death rate will rise above the famine threshold by May.