The United Nations has officially declared a famine in Gaza.
The UN aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said this Friday that about 500,000 people were facing catastrophic hunger following the collapse of the local food system.
Fletcher says an estimated 98 percent of cropland in the Gaza Strip was either damaged, inaccessible or both, while livestock have been destroyed and fishing banned.
He also says the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory because of systematic obstruction by Israel.
Israel’s foreign ministry has however replied saying there is no famine in Gaza and the report was based on lies spread by Hamas.