Israeli Demonstrators Protest Aid Blockade at Gaza Border

Israeli demonstrators gather by the border fence with Egypt at the Nitzana border crossing in southern Israel, as they attempt to block humanitarian aid trucks from entering into Israel on their way to the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Though much of Gaza was reliant on food aid, enough of it was entering the territory to largely meet the needs of its 2.4 million inhabitants.

But now, after more than four months of war that has flattened huge swathes of the Strip, Gazans are inching closer towards famine, according to the UN's World Food Programme.

And the situation in the north of the coastal territory is particularly acute, with international aid agencies unable to get in.

Since the start of this year, Israel has only given permission to 12 out of 77 United Nations evaluation missions to assess the needs of people in northern Gaza.

In the last few days, the non-profit organization World Central Kitchen, which made thousands of meals a day, said it had been forced to leave Gaza City for Rafah in the south.

Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has been turned in recent weeks to a vast camp for some 1.4 million people -- most of them displaced by Israel's relentless bombing.

Israel, though, is preparing a ground invasion of Rafah, prompting fears of a bloodbath.

As Egypt refuses to house Palestinian civilians on its side of the border, the question now is how to move more than a million people back towards the north to prevent them getting caught up in fighting.

Before the war, some 500 trucks carrying a range of goods entered Gaza every day. Since then, the numbers rarely go beyond 200, despite the enormous demand.

Israel has tightened checks on lorries coming into the territory to prevent arms being brought to Hamas -- and the group's leaders leaving -- all of which restricts the flow of aid.