Jerusalem (AFP) - The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming “systematic obstruction of aid” by Israel, hours after Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to destroy the territory’s largest city.

Israel denied there was a famine, with the foreign ministry saying the report was “based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests”.

The Rome-based IPC, a body of UN-backed experts, said in a new report that famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City.

Israel this week doubled down on plans to launch a new offensive to capture the city, despite an international outcry, saying it would help bring about the defeat of Hamas.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of September, covering around two-thirds of Gaza.

With the vast majority of the territory’s population displaced at least once, the UN estimated that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate,

UN agencies and aid groups had warned for months of a looming famine in Gaza, where Israel has severely restricted aid and at times completely cut it off during its nearly two-year war with militant group Hamas.

The Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, also rejected the report, saying previous editions had “proven inaccurate”.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory “because of systematic obstruction by Israel”.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said it was “a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare” and said it “may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire, saying: “We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity”.

- ‘Haunt us all’ -

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC report said.

By the end of September, it expected 614,000 people to be facing the same conditions.

It said the deterioration between July and August was the most severe since it began analysing hunger in Gaza, driven by a sharp escalation in the war and restrictions on supplies.

In early March, Israel completely banned aid from Gaza for two months, leading to severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel.

Speaking in Geneva, the UN’s Fletcher said the famine should “haunt us all”.

“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” he told reporters.

Ahead of the report’s release, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee preemptively attacked its findings.

“You know who IS starving? The hostages kidnapped and tortured by uncivilised Hamas savages,” he posted on X.

- ‘Gates of hell’ -

Speaking earlier on Friday, the Israeli defence minister warned: “The gates of hell will open upon the heads of Hamas’s murderers and rapists in Gaza - until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament.

“If they do not agree, Gaza, the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” he added, referring to two cities in Gaza largely razed during previous Israeli operations.

His statement came after Netanyahu said late Thursday he had ordered immediate negotiations aimed at freeing all remaining hostages in Gaza.

The Israeli premier added that the push to release the hostages would accompany the operation to take control of Gaza City.

Um Ibrahim Younes, a 43-year-old mother of four living in the remains of her destroyed home in Gaza City, said: “It feels like we are in hell. I’m going insane. I cannot imagine being displaced again.”

Nivin Ahmed, a 47-year-old mother of five living in a tent west of Gaza City said: “The bombardment intensifies every day, the explosions never stop. We wait for death – we have come to wish for it.”

- ‘Hand in hand’ -

Earlier this week, the Israeli defence ministry authorised the call-up of roughly 60,000 reservists to help seize Gaza City.

The UN humanitarian office has warned that the planned Israeli operation will have “a horrific humanitarian impact” on an already exhausted population.

Mediators have been waiting for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week.

Palestinian sources have said the new deal involves staggered hostage releases, while Israel has insisted that any deal must include the freeing of all the captives at once.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 62,192 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.