Palestinians reach out for food being distributed at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port. (File photo) Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa
Famine has struck an area of Gaza and will likely spread over the next month, a global hunger monitor has determined.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people - nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza - are experiencing famine and that was due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City - known as Gaza governorate - which the IPC said was in famine, its first such determination in the enclave.
The rest are in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis - central and southern areas that the IPC projected would be in famine by the end of next month.
Israel's Foreign Ministry has dismissed the declaration, saying there is no famine in Gaza.
"Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war," it said in a statement.
"In recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets."
For a region to be classified as in famine at least 20 per cent of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
Even if a region has not yet been classified as in famine because those thresholds have not been met, the IPC can determine that households there are suffering famine conditions, which it describes as starvation, destitution and death.
The IPC analysis comes after Britain, Canada, Australia and many European states said the humanitarian crisis had reached "unimaginable levels" after nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has long warned of an "epic humanitarian catastrophe" in the enclave of more than 2 million people.
- ABC
