The World Food Programme said on Tuesday that very little food assistance has made it beyond southern Gaza since the start of the conflict and that the risk of pockets of famine in the Palestinian enclave remained.
Israel's offensive launched in the wake of a deadly rampage by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7 has displaced most of Gaza's 2.3 million population and caused acute shortages of food, water and medical supplies.
At least 25,295 people in Gaza have been killed, according to Palestinian authorities, with thousands more feared buried under the rubble of a coastal strip largely laid to waste.
"It's difficult to get into the places where we need to get to in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza," said Abeer Etefa, WFP spokesperson for the Middle East.
"Very little assistance has made it beyond the southern part of the Gaza Strip... I think the risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there."
Etefa noted that there was a "systematic limitation on getting into the north of Gaza, not just for the WFP".
"This is why we're seeing people becoming more desperate and being impatient to wait for food distributions, because it's very sporadic," she said.
"They don't get it frequently, and they have no trust or confidence that these convoys will come again."
Since the start of hostilities, aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been limited, and the area was cut off altogether from external aid for weeks earlier in the conflict.
US strikes Iran in response to attack on cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz
Bahrain condemns Iranian drone attacks on its territory
Venezuela quake toll tops 900, search intensifies for hundreds trapped
Germany hit by record temperatures as heatwave moves east
