The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza surpassed 60,000 on Tuesday, the enclave's Ministry of Health said, reports Al Jazeera.
The grim milestone was reached on Tuesday, as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, warned in a new report that the "worst-case scenario of famine" was unfolding in Gaza.
At least 83 Palestinians, including 33 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn yesterday, despite "pauses" in fighting to deliver essential humanitarian aid, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Local accounts indicate that Israel used booby-trapped robots, as well as tanks and drones, in what residents describe as one of the bloodiest nights in recent weeks, said Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
"This is a sign of a possible imminent Israeli ground manoeuvre, although Israel has not yet confirmed the objectives of the attack," he said.
Food consumption has sharply deteriorated, the IPC said in its report, with one in three people going without food for days at a time.
"Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City," it said.
Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, with more than 20,000 children being admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 of them are severely malnourished.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, citing the IPC report, demanded that aid deliveries no longer be blocked or delayed.
Guterres once again called for an "immediate and permanent humanitarian ceasefire", the unconditional release of all captives and full access for humanitarian agencies across the enclave.
The IPC alert comes against the backdrop of its latest analysis released in May, which projected that by September, the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food shortages, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation and destitution, unless Israel lifts its blockade and stops its military campaign.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and humanitarian blockade, which it partially lifted in March, continues to plunge the Palestinian territory into an increasingly dire malnutrition crisis, as at least 147 people, including 88 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Monday.
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