Gaza is "the hungriest place on Earth", the United Nations today said, warning that the Palestinian territory's entire population was now at risk of famine.
Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in Gaza in March, ending a six-week truce.
"Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth," said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
"It's the only defined area -- a country or defined territory within a country -- where you have the entire population at risk of famine. 100 percent of the population at risk of famine," he said, rejecting claims to the contrary by Israeli authorities.
At a press briefing in Geneva, Laerke detailed the difficulties faced by the United Nations in delivering humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
In recent days, Israel has partially eased a total aid blockade on the Palestinian territory that it imposed on March 2, leading to severe shortages of food and medicine.
Laerke said 900 trucks of humanitarian aid had been authorised by Israel to enter the Strip since the blockade was partially lifted.
But so far, only 600 trucks have been offloaded on the Gaza side of the border, and a smaller number of truckloads have then been picked up, due to multiple security considerations.
"This limited number of truckloads that are coming in... it's a trickle," Laerke said, describing it as "drip-feeding food".
He said the mission to deliver aid was "in an operational strait-jacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history."