Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney urged Israel to allow the World Food Programme to work in Gaza, saying food must not be used as a 'political tool', hours after the UN agency ran out of stocks due to a sustained Israeli blockade on supplies.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The World Food Program says its food stocks in the Gaza Strip have run out under Israel’s nearly 8-week-old blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.

Gaza has entered a phase of "actual famine," Hamas said, after the UN’s World Food Programme announced it has exhausted its food supplies.