Earlier this month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — a group of experts that monitor hunger for the U.N. — used data submitted by 21 humanitarian organizations and made a finding that 500,000 residents of Gaza City are experiencing acute malnutrition, starvation or death.

Deir al-Bala and Khan Younis are likely to qualify as official famine areas by September, and the rest of Gaza’s population is struggling to cope with severe hunger.

Given intensifying military conflict, the collapse of health care, hospitals, water and sanitation services, the destruction of homes, and Israel’s restrictions on the delivery of food, the group predicted that conditions are likely to get worse.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the U.N. report as “an outright lie,” and allegations of famine as a “fake campaign” by Hamas. Meanwhile, Israel, which recently summoned 60,000 reservists to active military duty, is going forward with plans to invade Gaza City.

Although President Trump previously

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