An international agency on food crises on Tuesday warned that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently manifesting in the Gaza Strip.

According the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), residents of the Palestinian territory have seen access to food plummet to dire levels due to Israeli’s ongoing conflict and displacement.

The IPC said that there was evidence of widespread starvation while famine thresholds have been reached in large parts of the strip.

The alert issued by the UN-backed food security body does not constitute a formal designation of famine in Gaza; such a classification by the IPC is very rare.

Famine is formally declared when three criteria are met: extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition and hunger-related deaths.

The IPC experts said the most recent data shows that the first two conditions have already been fulfilled, with widespread extreme food insecurity across most of Gaza and acute malnutrition reported in Gaza City.

“Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering,” the global food monitor said.

It said that since March, Israel had permitted only limited aid into Gaza.

The resulting shortages of food, water and medicine prompted increasingly dire warnings from humanitarian groups, UN agencies have described the situation as one of catastrophic hunger.

Israel had disputes those characterisations, blaming both Hamas and UN agencies for aid distribution failures.

However, under growing international pressure, Israeli authorities on Sunday began allowing larger volumes of aid to enter Gaza for the first time in months.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants and other Islamist groups killed around 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 others from Israel into Gaza.

In response, Israel launched a sustained bombing campaign and ground offensive.

The Hamas-run health authority in Gaza said that more than 60,000 people have been killed since then.

(dpa/NAN)