The leading international authority on food crises says the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza" and it predicts “widespread death” without immediate action.

The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza,” UN-backed food security experts said on Tuesday, in a call to action amid unrelenting conflict, mass displacement and the near-total collapse of essential services in the war-battered enclave.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, states that the formal declaration of a famine comes with caution. Here's how a famine is declared, who declares it, and what such a declaration could mean for Gaza.