(Web Desk) - A senior UN aid official has warned that half of Gaza's population is starving, as fighting there continues.
Carl Skau, deputy director of the UN World Food Programme, said only a fraction of supplies needed have been able to enter the Strip - and nine out of 10 people cannot eat everyday. Conditions in Gaza have made deliveries "almost impossible", Mr Skau said.
Israel says it must continue air strikes on Gaza to eliminate Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home.
Only the Rafah crossing bordering Egypt has been open, allowing limited quantities of aid to reach Gaza.
This week Israel agreed to open the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into Gaza in the next few days - but only for the inspection of aid lorries. The trucks would then go to Rafah to cross into Gaza.
Mr Skau said nothing had prepared him for the "fear, the chaos, and the despair" he and his WFP team encountered during their trip to Gaza this week.
They witnessed "confusion at warehouses, distribution points with thousands of desperate hungry people, supermarkets with bare shelves, and overcrowded shelters with bursting bathrooms," he said.
International pressure and a temporary seven-day ceasefire last month had allowed some badly-needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip, but the WFP insists a second border crossing is now needed to meet demand.
Nine out of 10 families in some areas are spending "a full day and night without any food at all", according to Mr Skau.
People in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, a city now surrounded on two fronts by Israeli tanks, say the situation there is dire.