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.

The group said “there is a high risk” of outright famine if circumstances don’t change.

Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering Gaza for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of attacks on the Palestinians. 

“We end up waiting in line for four, five hours, in the sun. It is exhausting,” said Riham Sheikh el-Eid, waiting at a kitchen in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday. 

“At the end, we walk away with nothing. It is not enough for everybody.”

Chris Newton, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, said: “The Israeli government is starving Gaza as part of its attempt to destroy Hamas and transform the strip.”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a request for comment. 

Alexander, a US-Israeli soldier taken captive and held for more than 19 months in the Gaza Strip was expected to be released last night as part of a goodwill gesture for the Trump administration, Hamas said.

Mr Alexander was snatched from his military base in southern Israel during Hamas’s cross-border attack on October 7 2023. 

Israel says that, including Mr Alexander, 59 hostages remain in captivity. 

Many of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the 2023 attack were freed in ceasefire deals.