For months, humanitarian aid organizations and international bodies have warned that Gaza is facing "critical" levels of hunger and that famine is "imminent" in parts of the Gaza Strip. An increasing number of deaths due to malnutrition have also been reported and gut-wrenching images have emerged of suffering children and long food lines.

The leading international authority on food crises predicted "widespread death" in Gaza without immediate action.

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.