The United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza, the first time it has done so in the Middle East, with experts warning 500,000 people face "catastrophic" hunger.

"It is a famine: the Gaza famine," said Tom Fletcher, the UN's emergency relief coordinator.

He blamed Israel, accusing it of "systematic obstruction" of aid deliveries to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

Israel's foreign ministry said the declaration that famine is now present in and around Gaza City was "based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests".

"There is no famine in Gaza," it insisted.

The assessment of famine was made by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises.

It defines famine as occurring when 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food; 30 percent of children under five are acutely malnourished; and at least two in every 10,000 people die daily from outright starvation or from malnutrition and disease.

UN agencies have for........

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