The UN's World Food Program warned Tuesday that the disaster unfolding in Gaza was reminiscent of last century's famines seen in Ethiopia and Biafra in Nigeria.
"This is unlike anything we have seen in this century," WFP emergency director Ross Smith told reporters in Geneva.
"It reminds us of previous disasters in Ethiopia or Biafra in the past century," he said, speaking via video-link from Rome.
"We need urgent action now."
His comments came after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) warned Tuesday that "the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip".
The IPC, a UN-backed group of organizations used as a monitor to gauge malnutrition, insisted that "immediate, unimpeded" humanitarian access into Gaza was the only way to stop rapidly rising "starvation and death".
"Disaster is unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of our television screens," Smith said.
"This is not a warning: this is a call to action."
Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2 after ceasefire talks broke down. In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume, amid warnings of a wave of starvation.
The IPC said its latest data shows that "famine thresholds" have been reached in "most of the Gaza Strip".
The IPC alert did not amount to a new famine classification, it said, but was intended to draw attention to the crisis based on "the latest available evidence" through to July 25.
But Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP's food security and nutrition analysis director, insisted that "what we're seeing is mounting evidence that a famine is there".
"All the signals are there now."
With AFP
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