“FAMINE is imminent” in the northern Gaza Strip, where 70 per cent of the population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, the World Food Programme (WFP) said today.

The alarming report from the United Nations agency coincided with Israel facing mounting pressure from even its closest allies to allow more humanitarian aid to reach the besieged coastal enclave’s civilian population and the Israeli military launching another assault on Gaza’s largest hospital.

According to the latest findings of the WFP’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international process for estimating the scale of hunger crises, virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and around 677,000 people — nearly a third of the population — are suffering the highest level of catastrophic hunger. 

The UN agency warned that if Israel broadens its offensive to the packed southern city of Rafah, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened, the fighting could drive around half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million into catastrophic hunger.

Acting WFP director for the Palestinian territories Matthew Hollingworth said: “This is the largest number of people facing imminent famine in the world today.

“There has to be a ceasefire and there has to be massive amounts of food aid to flow consistently.”

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the impending famine was “entirely man-made” and that Israel was using starvation ”as a weapon of war.”

He said: “Trucks are stopped. People are dying, while the land crossings are artificially closed.”

Israeli authorities claim to  place no limits on the entry of aid and accuse UN agencies of failing to distribute it in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces launched another raid on Shifa hospital early today, saying Hamas had regrouped there and had fired on troops from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people have been sheltering.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that around 30,000 people were sheltering at the hospital and that it held “the Israeli occupation responsible for the lives of medical staff, patients and displaced Palestinians.”

People sheltering in the hospital said that Israeli forces backed by tanks and artillery had surrounded the medical complex and that snipers were shooting at people inside.

The ministry said the Israeli army had detained dozens of people.

Giving its latest figures, the Health Ministry said that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s current campaign of military action, two-thirds of them women and children.