A senior United Nations official has declared that northern Gaza is now witnessing a full-blown famine after more than six months of Israeli war as well as severe restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory.
Cindy McCain, the American director of the UN World Food Program, said that civilians in the most isolated part of Gaza have crossed the threshold into famine.
"It's horror. There is famine - full-blown famine - in the north, and it's moving its way south," she told the US television network NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview, which will be broadcast on Sunday.
McCain further called for urgent need for a ceasefire and increase in aid through land and sea routes to address the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The internationally recognized panel that monitors food crises warned in March that northern Gaza was on the brink of famine, likely to occur in May. Since then, the region has not received the necessary aid to prevent famine, according to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) humanitarian official for Gaza.
Hospital officials in northern Gaza reported the first deaths from hunger in early March, with most of the deceased being children.
The struggles this week with the first aid delivery through a newly reopened land corridor into north Gaza highlighted the uncertainty about security and the ongoing danger faced by relief workers.
At least 34,654 Palestinians have been killed and 77,908 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023.