Northern Gaza is now in “full-blown famine” mode, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) executive director Cindy McCain stated.

“It’s horror,” McCain told the US television network NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview, which will be broadcast on Sunday.

“There is famine – full-blown famine – in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” McCain said in the interview, according to The Associated Press news agency.

McCain also highlighted that a ceasefire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential to stave off a growing humanitarian catastrophe for Gaza’s 2.3 million people.