David Stout, Robin Millard in Geneva, and Alice Ritchie in Rome report that the United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, attributing it to Israel's "systematic obstruction of aid." This announcement came just hours after Israel's Defence Minister, Israel Katz, threatened to destroy the largest city in the territory.
Israel denied there was a famine, the Rome-based IPC, a body of UN-backed experts, said in a new report that famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Israel this week doubled down on plans to launch a new offensive to capture the city, despite an international outcry,
The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza.
With the vast majority of the territory's population displaced at least once, the UN estimated that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate,
The Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, also rejected the report, saying previous editions had "proven inaccurate".
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory "because of systematic obstruction by Israel".
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was "a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare" and said it "may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing".
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire, saying: "We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity".
"After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death," the IPC report said.
By the end of September, it expected 614,000 people to be facing the same conditions.
It said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza, driven by a sharp escalation in the war and restrictions on supplies.
In early March, Israel completely banned aid from Gaza for two months, leading to severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel.
Speaking in Geneva, the UN's Fletcher said the famine should "haunt us all".
Um Ibrahim Younes, a 43-year-old mother of four living in the remains of her destroyed home in Gaza City, said: "It feels like we are in hell. I'm going insane. I cannot imagine being displaced again."
Nivin Ahmed, a 47-year-old mother of five living in a tent west of Gaza City said: "The bombardment intensifies every day, the explosions never stop. We wait for death -- we have come to wish for it."
Israel's offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
