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U.S. ambassador to Israel earlier this week the warning by the internationally recognized group ." Lew and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funds the monitoring group, both said the findings failed to properly account for rapidly changing circumstances in north Gaza.

The U.S. Embassy in Israel and the State Department declined comment. FEWS confirmed Thursday it had retracted , and said it expected to re-release the report in January with updated data and analysis. The group declined further comment.

69制片厂制作传媒淲e work day and night with the U.N. and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs 69制片厂制作传媒� which are great 69制片厂制作传媒� and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,69制片厂制作传媒� Lew said Tuesday.

USAID confirmed to the AP that it had asked the famine-monitoring organization to withdraw its stepped-up warning of imminent famine, issued in a report dated Monday.

The dispute points in part to the difficulty of assessing the extent of starvation in largely isolated northern Gaza, where thousands in recent weeks have fled an intensified Israeli military crackdown that aid groups say has allowed delivery of only a dozen trucks of food and water since roughly October.

FEWS Net said in its withdrawn report that unless Israel changes its policy, it expects the number of people dying of starvation and related ailments in north Gaza to reach between two and 15 per day sometime between January and March.

The internationally recognized mortality threshold for famine is

FEWS was created by the U.S. development agency in the 1980s and is still funded by it. But it is intended to provide independent, neutral and data-driven assessments of hunger crises, including in war zones. Its findings help guide decisions on aid by the U.S. and other governments and agencies around the world.

A spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, Oren Marmorstein, welcomed the U.S. ambassador's public challenge of the famine warning. 69制片厂制作传媒淔EWS NET - Stop spreading these lies!69制片厂制作传媒� Marmorstein said on .

In challenging the findings publicly, the U.S. ambassador "leveraged his political power to undermine the work of this expert agency,69制片厂制作传媒� said Scott Paul, a senior manager at the Oxfam America humanitarian nonprofit. Paul stressed that he was not weighing in on the accuracy of the data or methodology of the report.

69制片厂制作传媒淭he whole point of creating FEWS is to have a group of experts make assessments about imminent famine that are untainted by political considerations,69制片厂制作传媒� said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of and now a visiting professor in international affairs at . 69制片厂制作传媒淚t sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations -- the Biden administration69制片厂制作传媒檚 worry about funding Israel69制片厂制作传媒檚 starvation strategy -- to interfere."

Israel says it has been operating in recent months against Hamas militants still active in northern Gaza. It says the vast majority of the area69制片厂制作传媒檚 residents have fled and relocated to Gaza City, where most aid destined for the north is delivered. But some critics, including a former defense minister, have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza69制片厂制作传媒檚 far north, near the Israeli border.

North Gaza has been one of the areas hardest-hit by fighting and Israel69制片厂制作传媒檚 restrictions on aid throughout its war with Hamas militants. Global famine monitors and U.N. and U.S. officials have warned repeatedly of the imminent risk of malnutrition and deaths from starvation hitting famine levels.

International officials say Israel last summer increased the amount of aid it was admitting there, under U.S. pressure. The U.S. and U.N. have said Gaza69制片厂制作传媒檚 people as a whole need between 350 and 500 trucks a day of food and other vital needs.

But the U.N. and aid groups say Israel recently has again blocked almost all aid to that part of Gaza. , the American head of the U.N. World Food Program, earlier this month for political pressure to get food flowing to Palestinians there.

Israel says it places no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and that hundreds of truckloads of goods are piled up at Gaza69制片厂制作传媒檚 crossings and accused international aid agencies of failing to deliver the supplies. The U.N. and other aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing combat, looting and insufficient security by Israeli troops make it impossible to deliver aid effectively.

Lew, the U.S. ambassador, said the famine warning was based on 69制片厂制作传媒渙utdated and inaccurate69制片厂制作传媒� data. He pointed to uncertainty over how many of the 65,000-75,000 people remaining in northern Gaza had fled in recent weeks, saying that skewed the findings.

FEWS said in its report that its famine assessment holds even if as few as 10,000 people remain.

USAID in its statement to AP said it had reviewed the report before it became public, and noted 69制片厂制作传媒渄iscrepancies69制片厂制作传媒� in population estimates and some other data. The U.S. agency had asked the famine warning group to address those uncertainties and be clear in its final report to reflect how those uncertainties affected its predictions of famine, it said.

69制片厂制作传媒淭his was relayed before Ambassador Lew69制片厂制作传媒檚 statement,69制片厂制作传媒� USAID said in a statement. 69制片厂制作传媒淔EWS NET did not resolve any of these concerns and published in spite of these technical comments and a request for substantive engagement before publication. As such, USAID asked to retract the report.69制片厂制作传媒�

Roth criticized the U.S. challenge of the report in light of the gravity of the crisis there.

69制片厂制作传媒淭his quibbling over the number of people desperate for food seems a politicized diversion from the fact that the Israeli government is blocking virtually all food from getting in,69制片厂制作传媒� he said, adding that 69制片厂制作传媒渢he Biden administration seems to be closing its eyes to that reality, but putting its head in the sand won69制片厂制作传媒檛 feed anyone.69制片厂制作传媒�

The U.S., Israel69制片厂制作传媒檚 main backer, provided a record amount of military support in the first year of the war. At the same time, the Biden administration repeatedly urged Israel to allow more access to aid deliveries in Gaza overall, and warned that failing to do so could trigger U.S. restrictions on military support. The administration recently said Israel was making improvements and declined to carry out its threat of restrictions.

Military support for Israel69制片厂制作传媒檚 war in Gaza is politically charged in the U.S., with Republicans and some Democrats staunchly opposed any effort to limit U.S. support over the suffering of Palestinian civilians trapped in the conflict. The Biden administration69制片厂制作传媒檚 reluctance to do more to press Israel for improved treatment of civilians undercut support for Democrats in last month69制片厂制作传媒檚 elections.

Sam Mednick and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.