“Hunger is a slow and painful death,” said Hiba Tibi, country director for the CARE international aid group, who reported aid workers seeing children “who can barely talk and walk” for lack of food.

A famine is declared when 20 percent of households face an extreme food shortage — which is the case in Gaza, the UN says.

Other criteria are that one in three children are acutely malnourished, and that at least two in every 10,000 people die every day of starvation or malnutrition.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), “one in three children below the age of two is now acutely malnourished, or ‘wasted’”, meaning they are dangerously thin.

In a statement, the World Health Organization pointed to the lasting effects of malnutrition, particularly on children, warning that the “current situation will have long-term effects on the lives and health of thousands”.

“This compromises the health and well-being of an entire future generation,” it added. WFP chief economist Arif Husain, said the final criteria for declaring a famine — the mortality rate — could be met within weeks.

The FAO said it could be already happening in the north, where data is patchy.