Gazans gather around aid trucks in Khan Younis - Planet Labs/AFP via Getty

The hunger crisis in Gaza has become visible from space as thousands of Palestinians can be seen crowding around aid trucks in new satellite imagery.

The images show a mass of thousands of people gathered around 15 lorries as they reached the south of the war-torn Strip on Saturday in a display of desperation.

It came as the global body responsible for monitoring hunger warned on Tuesday that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is now unfolding in the territory.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, conceded that the situation in the Strip was “difficult”, saying Israel was working to allow in “large quantities of aid”.

Internally displaced Palestinians carry bags of flour near a food distribution point in Zikim, in the northern Gaza Strip - MOHAMMED SABER/EPA/Shutterstock

The IPC has not yet formally designated Gaza as being in a state of famine – a specific and stringent classification which requires intensive collection of data – but said it would conduct that analysis “without delay”.

In order for the body to declare famine, it will have to prove that at least 20 per cent of Gaza’s 2.1 million population (equal to 420,000 people) are experiencing an “extreme” lack of food. More than 30 per cent of children under five also have to be suffering from acute malnutrition, and at least two people per 10,000 die from starvation per day.

In the alert, the IPC also warned that aid which could avert a hunger crisis “remains extremely restricted due to requests for humanitarian access being repeatedly denied and frequent security incidents”.

It added: “Despite the easing of the blockade on 19 May, only a trickle of humanitarian assistance, mainly food, has entered the Gaza Strip. Bakeries remain closed, and community kitchens – though operational – are vastly inadequate to meet the scale of need.”

Data shared with The Telegraph by Unicef last week suggests the situation has been rapidly deteriorating month on month.

In January, 2,846 children were diagnosed with malnutrition – a figure that has more than doubled to 5,870 in June.

A child pleads for food at a charity kitchen in Gaza - REUTERS/Khamis Al-Rifi

In July alone, at least 63 people, including 24 children under five, died from hunger, most showing signs of “severe wasting,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Israel strongly denies it has a policy of starving Gazans, accusing foreign capitals and much of the foreign media of parroting a “Hamas famine narrative”.

On Sunday, the government announced it would instigate a series of daily pauses in combat operations in certain key population areas, as well as establishing safe routes for aid trucks.

The UN and other NGOs have welcomed the move but said access needed to be drastically expanded to avert humanitarian disaster.

Jordan and the United Arab Emirates airdropped supplies into the territory, while France said it would drop aid into Gaza “in the coming days”, AFP news agency reported.

A report in the Qatar-owned New Arab outlet suggested that approximately half of the aid trucks that had entered from Egypt had been looted, with the contents sold in local markets.

The UN has also said its drivers have encountered looting from a febrile and desperate population.

Israel alleges that Hamas is conducting widespread looting of aid trucks.

On Tuesday the Gaza Health Ministry, which comes under the control of Hamas, said Israel’s military operation in the Strip had killed at least 60,000 Palestinians since October 7 2023.

It said most of the Palestinians killed were civilians, although the body has previously been accused of failing to distinguish between terrorists and non-combatants.

There were unconfirmed reports of approximately 30 Gazan civilians killed in Israeli air strikes overnight, with more than 100 killed in the past 24 hours by both shootings and air strikes.

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