“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert on Friday.

The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the besieged strip or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

“If no effective action is taken by stakeholders with influence, the scale of this looming catastrophe is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023,” the FRC committee added.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that there are between 75,000 and 95,000 people still in northern Gaza.

The Famine Review Committee said that it could be “assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing” in north Gaza.

“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” it added.

The Famine Review Committee reviews findings by the global hunger monitor – an internationally recognised standard known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

The IPC defines famine as when at least 20% of people in an area are suffering extreme food shortages, with at least 30% of children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

The IPC is an initiative involving UN agencies, national governments and aid groups that sets the global standard on measuring food crises.

The IPC warned last month that the entire Gaza Strip was at risk of famine, while top UN officials last week described the northern Gaza Strip as “apocalyptic” and everyone there was “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.

The amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level in a year, according to UN data, and the UN has repeatedly accused Israel of hindering and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to Gaza’s north.

The Israeli attacks on northern Gaza has so far killed at least 1,800 Palestinians, according to local officials.

Overall, the Israeli war on Gaza has killed more than 43,500 people and wounded over 102,000 more since 7 October, the majority of them children and women, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Thousands more are missing, presumed dead under the rubble.

The office published the figures in a 32-page report that covers the six months from November 2023 to April 2024.

About 80 percent of the victims were killed in residential buildings, out of which 44 percent were children and 26 percent women, the report said.

Most of the verified deaths in Gaza were children between the ages of five and nine.

The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman, the report added.

A UN statement said Israel’s continuation of these attacks “demonstrates an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected”.

“The International Court of Justice, in its series of orders on provisional measures, underscored the international obligations of Israel to prevent, protect against and punish acts of genocide and associated prohibited conduct,” according to the report.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk stressed the imperative for Israel to fully and immediately comply with those obligations.

Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief called it “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law”.

“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” Turk continued.

On May 24, the ICJ ordered Israel to halt its aggression on Rafah, establish humanitarian corridors and allow the world body to investigate genocide.

Israel continues its genocidal onslaught on Gaza, killing over 43,500 Palestinians and rendering the enclave almost uninhabitable.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the blockaded enclave.