The possibility of a "full-fledged famine" looms large across the entire Gaza Strip amid the Israel-Hamas war, humanitarian groups have warned -- but especially in northern Gaza, where some people there say they're using bird feed in place of flour to stave off starvation.

Northern Gaza has been largely cut off for months now, according to the United Nations, and aid trucks carrying flour arrive sporadically and are swarmed by hundreds of hungry people.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) officials also say Israel provides too few authorizations to make deliveries into some areas and that heavy fighting often makes it too dangerous for aid workers to operate. The aid arriving in northern Gaza has been particularly restricted, the U.N. says. Israel disputes the criticisms.

"For more than two months, we have not received flour due to the difficulty of aid entering and the scarcity of flour in the area," Sami Abu Sweilem, a 55-year-old father who is sheltering in a UNRWA school in northern Gaza, told ABC News.

"Children almost died of hunger, so we thought of a way to save our children from death," he said, explaining how he's been using bird feed and animal fodder in place of precious flour.

"I saw one of the displaced people in an area neighboring us with a bag of corn from a store and he told me that he wanted to grind it to make bread. I thought it was a good idea and we tried it," Abu Sweilem said. Soon others followed suit, he said, and now it's even difficult to find animal feed to grind.

Almost all Gazans are now reliant on food aid for sustenance, according to the United Nations. The World Food Programme estimates that 26% of the population in Gaza is now facing starvation. Roughly two-thirds of Gazans relied on food aid before the start of the war, the WFP has said.

"If things continue as they are, or if things worsen, we are looking at a full-fledged famine within the next six months," Arif Husain, the chief economist for the WFP, told ABC News.

"We were searching for flour and constantly waiting for aid," Salwa Diab told ABC News on the phone from her refuge at the Gaza Training College in Gaza City. But when the aid never came, she said she was forced to turn her bird feed into bread.

"When I made this bread for the first time, my children thought it was like a normal loaf of bread. They were very happy with it and ate it and were forced to accept its taste," she said, adding: "When the bread is cold, it becomes so bad that we cannot eat it, unfortunately, but when the children are hungry, they are forced to eat it in order to silence their hunger. For more than a month, I have been making this bread when we have available fodder."

"The aid that comes very rarely, we know about it through the news," 42-year-old Khaled Nabhan told ABC News in a phone call from Gaza City.

"People come out onto the streets, either on the coast road or Salah al-Din Street, waiting for the aid to enter," he said, estimating that the crowds can reach the thousands and adding that people have been injured due to stampeding and gunfire.

"The question now is, when these fodders run out, how will we get flour," Nabhan asked. "This war has been a quest to escape death, either from bombing or from hunger," he added.

Israeli officials, who control the routes into Gaza, say they send 200 trucks of food and aid a day into the Gaza Strip. Before the war, 500 trucks were being sent to Gaza, according to UNRWA.

Israeli officials denied accusations they're not letting enough food into Gaza and blamed the Hamas terrorist group for stealing aid. They said they conduct necessary inspections on the trucks, and also blamed the U.N. and other aid agencies for creating logistical bottlenecks.

The U.N. has disputed the Israeli officials' claims, saying, on average, far less than 200 trucks are entering Gaza most days. U.N. officials have said excessive Israeli inspections, as well as arbitrary rejections of some aid, frequently hold up deliveries.

"We are getting the average of trucks near 80, 80 trucks per day," UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna told ABC News.

UNRWA has come under fire over the last week, as a dossier from the Israeli military recently revealed new allegations against some UNRWA employees who are accused of being involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The report obtained by ABC News alleges that 13 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, including six employees who allegedly infiltrated Israel.

The U.N. condemned the alleged actions and said nine of those workers were fired. Two of the accused workers are reportedly dead and one has not immediately been identified, the U.N. said.

Not long after the allegations were announced Friday, several nations and other organizations, including the U.S. State Department, announced they would pause funding to UNRWA as the investigation continues.

On Monday, a coalition of 20 nongovernmental organizations, including Save the Children, sent out a letter condemning the funding pause, saying innocent Gazans will be left to suffer without aid from UNRWA.

"We are shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job," the statement read.

UNRWA, which is the primary aid provider in Gaza and shelters about 1.4 million people, has warned that the funding suspension could impact its operations within weeks.

"If funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

More than 27,000 people have been killed in Gaza and over 65,000 others injured since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Since then, in Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others injured, according to the Israeli prime minister's office. Israeli officials say 556 Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been killed, including 221 since the ground operations in Gaza began.

UNRWA: Funds will last to end-February after suspensions by donors

Palestinian refugees gather outside the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in Beirut to protest against a decision by several countries to stop funding of the organization over Israeli claims that some of UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas 07 October attacks.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will have to cease work in four weeks if the funds pledged to it are not paid out, the agency said in Geneva on Thursday.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said 16 countries had suspended payments amounting to $440 million, including major contributors such as the United States and Germany, following allegations that UNRWA staff had been directly involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel.

"If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region," Lazzarini said.

UNRWA Gaza Strip director Thomas White said: "It's difficult to imagine that Gazans will survive this crisis without UNRWA."

In Israel, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused UNRWA of acting as a conduit for international funding to terrorist organizations.

Speaking to a UN delegation, Gallant said the organization had lost any legitimacy to continue to exist in its current form. He termed UNRWA "Hamas with a facelift."

UN Secretary General António Guterres has pledged to clear up the allegations and said that the employment of a number of staff had been terminated.

Embattled Gaza aid group UNRWA has been helping Palestinian refugees since 1949

Palestinian refugees stand outside the entrance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees Health Clinic in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, West Bank.

 The United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is embroiled in controversy after Israel reported a dozen of the agency's employees directly participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The report prompted 16 nations to suspend funding to the UNRWA, which provides aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging donor nations to continue their support amid the war.

The "UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza," he said.

Roots go back to 1949

The agency provides food and medicine, education, healthcare and social services, as well as emergency assistance due to armed conflicts and financial assistance.

The UNRWA was created at the end of the first Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East in 1948, and its mission hasn't changed -- to assist the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war.

The U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947, adopted the Partition Resolution that created Jewish and Arab states from what had been Great Britain's Palestinian Mandate territory, according to the U.S. Department of State. The leaders of the Arab states viewed the Partition Resolution as favorable to Israel and unfair to the Arab populations living within Israeli territory, and conflict erupted.

Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948. In response, five Arab nations formed the Arab Liberation Army, which attacked Israeli cities, settlements and its military. Volunteers from neighboring Arab states manned the ALA and other irregular forces during the conflict.

The Arab militants attacked Tel Aviv, Israel, on the night of May 14, 1948, and armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt attacked the former Palestinian territory. Israeli forces resisted and eventually gained the initiative in the conflict, which lasted into 1949.

The warring states agreed to an armistice and lines of division that remained in place until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Meanwhile, the United Nations on Dec. 8, 1949, created the UNRWA and tasked it with providing direct relief and works programs serving Palestinian refugees.

The UNRWA began operations on May 1, 1950, to tend to refugees of Palestinian descent and provide them with humanitarian aid and other services. The United Nations has since continually renewed and funded the UNRWA.

Its services are available only for Palestinian refugees, which the United Nations defines as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine" from June 1, 1946, to May 15, 1948, and "who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 war."

6 million eligible

After the 1967 Six-Day War, the United Nations expanded the UNRWA's mandate to help all Palestinian refugees created due to ongoing Middle East conflicts.

In the beginning, the agency provided services for 750,000 Palestinian refugees. Four generations later, eligibility has swollen to nearly 6 million. Its services are supported by donations from U.N. member states, many of which suspended their funding in light of accusations of terrorist activities by UNRWA workers.

Israel released a report Friday that accuses 12 UNRWA workers of being involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, naming seven accused of participating in the surprise raid that killed about 1,200. More than 200 others were kidnapped, with about 130 still held in hostage in Gaza.

The Israeli report said 190 or more UNRWA workers and about 10% of the agency's 13,000 employees are members of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad or similar organizations.

The United States, United Kingdom and Japan are among 16 nations that suspended their financial support of the agency in the wake of the report. The UNRWA said it fired 11 of the identified employees; one is dead.

The agency said this week it only has enough funding to continue operating until the end of February.

The UNRWA in 2022 obtained $1.17 billion in pledged support and another $44.6 million from the United Nations and U.N. entities, the agency said. Private partnerships also provided $15.4 million in financial support to the UNRWA in 2022.

Other relief agencies also are assisting Palestinian refugees in Gaza. They include the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Egyptian Red Crescent Society and the Palestine Red Crescent Society, according to the International Red Cross.

UNICEF also is providing aid.