KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 25 -- The announcement by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) that Gaza is now facing a "man-made famine" should have jolted the conscience of the international community.

Instead, it is being met with muted reactions, sterile debates, and even outright indifference.

When starvation - one of humanity's most visceral horrors - is allowed to become a negotiating tool in geopolitics, the very moral foundation of the United Nations collapses.

This is not merely about Gaza.

It is about the debasement of the UN as a system.

A famine that is declared "entirely man-made" cannot be reduced to statistics in a report or a footnote in the annals of humanitarian failure.

It is the precise moment w...