United Nations agencies say that Gaza’s entire population of 2.3 million people is at “imminent risk of famine” as battles rage between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters across most of the enclave.

Relentless attacks from both sides have left more than half a million people – or roughly one in four people in Gaza – starving because not enough food has entered the besieged territory.

The proportion of households in Gaza affected by high levels of acute food insecurity is the largest ever recorded globally, according to the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published on Thursday.

The extent of hunger in Gaza has eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to the report, which included data from the World Food Programme (WFP), other UN agencies and non-governmental organisations.

Its report said that 26 percent of Gazans, about 576,600 people, have “exhausted their food supplies and coping capacities and face catastrophic hunger … and starvation”.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Friday that 20,057 Palestinians have been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7, when the current conflict broke out. The death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel stands at about 1,140.

The Gaza ministry said that 390 Palestinians were killed and 734 people were injured in the last 48 hours alone.