The report also found that more than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing Phase 5 conditions, which are characterized as catastrophic levels of food insecurity. About 1.07 million people, 54% of the population, are facing Phase 4 conditions, characterized as emergency levels of food insecurity.

"An entire population is being pushed into starvation, destitution, and death,” said Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister.

Food-security experts said a famine has taken hold in the Gaza City area, the first-ever such determination in the Middle East and one that puts more pressure on Israel.

For an area to be experiencing famine, at least 30 percent of children under 5 must be considered acutely malnourished by height and weight measures. Using the arm circumference method, the I.P.C. said, the accepted threshold dropped to 15 percent.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Gaza city could "turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun" unless Hamas agrees to Israel's terms.

Conditions in Gaza City are expected to worsen and, while a ceasefire could come, so could a huge military assault.

Israel says "there is no famine in Gaza" after the IPC reports more than 500,000 people in the Strip are facing "starvation, destitution and death".