More than 100 NGOs warn of 'mass famine' in Gaza, even though tons of untouched aid are being prevented from being delivered.

More than 100 aid organizations warned Wednesday that a "massive famine" is spreading in the Gaza Strip and that their own colleagues are suffering from severe shortages of supplies.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than two million people have faced 21 months of devastating conflict.

Even after Israel began easing a more than two-month blockade in May, Gazans still suffer from severe shortages of food and other essential goods.

In addition, the UN denounced on Tuesday that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to collect aid at distribution points since late May, when the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) was launched.

The 111 signatories of the statement, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children, and Oxfam, warned that "our colleagues and those we serve are slowly dying."

"As the Israeli government's siege causes hunger among the population of Gaza, aid workers are joining the same lines to receive food, risking being shot simply for trying to feed their families ," the statement said.

The groups called for immediate negotiations for a truce, the opening of border crossings, and the free flow of aid through UN mechanisms, not the GHF.

Israel claims that humanitarian aid is entering Gaza and accuses the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas of exploiting the suffering of civilians.

The organizations' complaint comes one day after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff announced a trip to Europe this week to discuss Gaza, which could later lead to the Middle East.

Witkoff is coming with "the firm hope of achieving a new ceasefire, as well as a humanitarian corridor for the delivery of aid , which both sides have in fact agreed to," said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.

In their statement, the humanitarian organizations indicated that there are tons of untouched aid in warehouses outside the territory and even within it, but that they are being prevented from delivering it.

"Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and pain, waiting for assistance and truces, only to wake up to worse conditions," the signatories noted.

"It's not just physical torment, but also psychological. Survival seems like a mirage," they added.

Al Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Salmiya said Tuesday that 21 children had died of hunger and malnutrition in the Palestinian enclave in the past 72 hours.

At Naser Hospital in southern Gaza, AFP footage captured parents weeping over the skeletal remains of their 14-year-old son, who had died of starvation.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the "horror" in Gaza, where "a level of death and destruction unprecedented in recent history" has been reached.

Israel and Hamas have been participating in indirect negotiations in Doha since July 6 to try to end nearly two years of conflict.

But after more than two weeks of back-and-forth, the efforts of the mediators—Qatar, Egypt, and the United States—have yielded nothing.

Twenty-five Western countries called this week for an immediate end to the war, but the Israeli army announced the launch of a new offensive in an area of central Gaza that had been considered relatively safe until now.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly 88% of the enclave is now under an Israeli evacuation order or within an Israeli militarized zone.

The conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, with Hamas's attack on Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official data.

The Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian enclave killed 59,106 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.