February 28, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

More than a half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, United Nations agencies warned on Tuesday, as the UN Security Council discussed food security in the stricken Palestinian enclave.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 576,000 people across Gaza are "facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation." 

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned "of a real prospect of famine by May, with 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialize."

"Today, food aid is required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people. Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world," Carl Skau, WFP Deputy Executive Director, told the Security Council.

"One child in every six under the age of 2 is acutely malnourished."

Ready for action: As ceasefire negotiations continue, Skau said the WFP "is ready to swiftly expand and scale up operations" if an agreement is reached.

"Immediate action is required to enable a huge increase in the volume of food and other humanitarian supplies," he said.

CNN's Nic Robertson reports increasing food shortages in Gaza are causing citizens to become increasingly desperate and instances of looting food aid trucks have paused delivery in some areas.

Take a look at the dire situation unfolding in northern Gaza:

Hospitals in Gaza are facing dire conditions, with some operating without electricity, water and low levels of medical supplies, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

The situation is particularly critical at the Nasser medical complex in southern Gaza, the ministry said, adding that the hospital's generator has stopped, the sewage network has broken down, water was cut off, and a lack of medical capabilities has hindered the facility's work.

In northern Gaza, the Al-Awda Health and Community Association said that its hospital cannot carry out medical services due to the lack of medical supplies, warning of the possibility of a “complete cessation” of services in the next 48 hours. 

The Israeli military is working on a way to get aid into northern Gaza "quickly," an Israeli official told CNN earlier Tuesday. The Israel Defense Forces is working out where aid would cross into Gaza, the source said.

Death toll approaches 30,000: The total number of people killed in Gaza since October 7 is up to 29,878, with the number of injured reaching 70,215, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry.

CNN cannot independently confirm the numbers due to the lack of international media access to Gaza. 

CNN's Richard Allen Greene contributed reporting to this post.

The top US humanitarian aid official on Tuesday called for additional assistance to be able to reach those inside of Gaza as she announced the United States will provide $53 million in additional humanitarian aid to the war-torn strip and the occupied West Bank.

Much of this aid will support food assistance, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power said in an announcement, as more than 2 million people in Gaza are at “imminent risk” of famine.

Power is slated to travel from Jordan to Israel and the West Bank as part of the effort to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is veering into catastrophe.

US officials have repeatedly said the amount of aid entering Gaza is not nearly enough. Last week, only 85 trucks a day were able to enter through the Rafah crossing, Power said, down from 500 before the conflict began.

Keep reading about aid challenges in Gaza.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

Biden said Monday he hoped there would be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” as the death toll in Gaza approaches 30,000.

What Israel says: Israel was “surprised that he (Biden) used the word "ceasefire" on Monday, an Israeli official told CNN Tuesday, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject. “I don’t know on what basis he said it.”

“Israel will be ready to release (Palestinian) prisoners even today if conditions are met,” the official added.

What Hamas says: Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told CNN Tuesday that the group was unaware of any ceasefire agreement that could be brokered by next Monday. “There is nothing,” Naim said.

What Qatar says: Qatar, which along with the US is a key mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, added further caution on Tuesday and hinted at a different timeline than was suggested by Biden. “If there was an agreement, you would see me more in a cheered attitude,” Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatar Foreign Ministry, said, adding that meetings are still taking place, which signal a positive trajectory.

Humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza declined 50% in February compared to January, according to the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Monday.

He blamed a lack of political will, regular closing of crossing points and lack of security due to military operations among the reasons for the decline in aid deliveries as well as what he called the “collapse of civil order.”

Israeli protesters have repeatedly blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing, saying no aid should go in as long as hostages are being held by Hamas.

On February 20, the World Food Programme announced it had paused aid deliveries to northern Gaza, citing “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order” in the area with crowds of hungry people attempting to board the agency’s trucks and loot their contents.

Lazzarini said UN agencies had been warning of the looming threat of famine and appealed for more access to deliver desperately needed assistance.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government have submitted their resignations, he announced on Monday.

The resignation comes as the Palestinian Authority comes under intense pressure from the United States to reform and improve its governance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The PA has long been seen as corrupt by US politicians and Palestinians themselves.

The PA was set up in the mid-1990s as an interim government pending Palestinian independence after the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. It is headquartered in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and exercises nominal self-rule in parts of the territory.

The government, which is dominated by the Fatah political party, held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip. Israel has rejected the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza after the war, and has dismissed the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the territories.

The US, however, favors a reformed PA being in control of both the West Bank and Gaza as part of a future independent state.

Keep reading here about the resignation.

The Israeli military has submitted a plan to the war cabinet for “evacuating the population” of Gaza from areas of fighting, amid warnings that an offensive on the southern city of Rafah will take place soon.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had directed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to draw up a plan for the evacuation of civilians from Rafah, where more than a million people are crammed.

Some important context: Fears are growing in Gaza and across the international community over the IDF’s planned offensive on Rafah, which lies next to the shuttered border with Egypt. The city has become home to the majority of displaced Palestinians as the Israeli military advanced south through the enclave, but those civilians seemingly have no further place to escape.

The US has warned it would not support a campaign on the city without a “credible” plan to evacuate Palestinians.

Monday’s statement from Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet also approved a plan for providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza “in a manner that will prevent the looting that has occurred in the northern Strip and other areas.”

The Israeli leader pledged to press ahead with the effort in Rafah during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

Netanyahu indicated he had asked the IDF to submit a “double plan”; one to “enable the evacuation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” and another “to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.”

CNN’s Sana Noor Haq, Camila DeChalus, Sam Fossum, Richard Roth and Lucas Lilieholm contributed reporting