People walk with sacks of flour delivered after trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered northern Gaza coming from the Zikim border crossing. AFP
Guterres called for "an immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, and full, unfettered humanitarian access," while UN rights chief Volker Turk said "it is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare", minutes after famine was declared in the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Turk said the resulting deaths "may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing."
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine in Gaza should "haunt us all" and was entirely preventable had the United Nations not been systematically prevented from bringing in food.
"It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel," Fletcher told reporters in Geneva, calling it "a famine that will and must haunt us all".
His remarks come shortly after the United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza under Israel's blockade, with its experts saying 500,000 Palestinians are facing "catastrophic" hunger.
After months of warning of the deteriorating humanitarian situation, the Rome-based IPC panel said famine was now confirmed in the Gaza Governorate -- Gaza City -- which covers about 20 percent of the Gaza Strip.
The IPC said hunger was not only driven by Israel's war and the blockade, but also magnified by widespread displacement and the collapse of food production in Gaza, pushing hunger to life-threatening levels across the entire territory after 22 months of relentless Israeli bombardment.
More than half a million people in Gaza, about a quarter of the population, face catastrophic levels of hunger, and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes, the IPC report said.
Last month, the IPC said the "worst-case scenario of famine" was unfolding in Gaza, but stopped short of an official determination.
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