ROME: Almost a third of people in Gaza are "not eating for days", the United Nations food aid agency told AFP on Friday, saying the crisis has reached "new and astonishing levels of desperation."

The Rome-based World Food Programme had previously warned of a "critical risk of famine" in war-ravaged Gaza, over which international condemnation of Israel's actions has been growing.

"Nearly one person in three is not eating for days. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment," a WFP statement said.

It said that 470,000 people are expected to face "catastrophic hunger" – the most critical category under the UN's Integrated Food Security Phase classification – between May and September this year.