The U.N. food agency said Monday that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza’s total population to the brink of starvation.
The alarming report came as Israel faces mounting pressure from even its closest allies to streamline the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip and open more crossings. The European Union’s top diplomat said the impending famine was “entirely man-made” as “starvation is used as a weapon of war.”
Israeli forces meanwhile launched another raid on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital early Monday, saying Hamas militants had regrouped there and had fired on them from inside the compound, where Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of people have been sheltering.
The army last raided Shifa Hospitalin November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading …