Gaza will reach a “deadly turning point” within days as famine grips the enclave, a coalition of charities has warned the world.
The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) , which monitors global hunger, said the “worst-case scenario is currently playing out”.
Its unequivocal assessment comes after days in which the world reacted to a call from Daily Express demanding an end to the starvation of trapped innocents.
The IPC said: “Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
In a sobering report it said food consumption has sharply deteriorated, with one in three of the 2.1 million population going without food for days at a time.
Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of this month, with more than 20,000 children admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 are severely malnourished.
The latest alert – which stopped short of a formal declaration of famine – comes after analysis released in May which estimated that by September the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food insecurity, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation, and destitution.
Aid charities estimate that at least 500-600 trucks carrying food, medicine, hygiene products, fuel and other critical supplies need to enter Gaza every day yet the number being allowed in is one fifth of that.
Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, said one million women and girls in Gaza now face the “unthinkable choice” of starving or risking their lives while searching for food, saying: “This horror must end.”
Meanwhile, at least 78 Palestinians, including a pregnant woman, were killed by Israeli attacks on Monday, health officials claimed.
Her baby girl died hours after being delivered in a complex emergency caesarean.
The mother was said to be among 12 killed in an Israeli attack on a house and neighbouring tents in Khan Younis. Another strike hit a house nearby, killing at least 11 people.
Israel said it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
The Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll since the October 7 attack now stands at more than 60,000.
The Israeli offensive was launched in retaliation for a cross-border murder spree which killed at least 1,200 and saw around 250 taken hostage.
The ministry added: “A number of victims remain under the rubble and on the streets, as ambulance and civil defence crews are unable to reach them at this time.”