THE Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign, food security experts said in a stark warning today.

The warning of the dire humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians followed an announcement by Hamas that they intended to release the remaining US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander.

In Gaza, nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living in “catastrophic” levels of hunger, and one million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.