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Gazans “holding on by a thread”, UN aid worker’s harrowing testimony shows
A UN humanitarian freshly back from Gaza described on Tuesday seeing families dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons and shell-shocked toddlers who lost limbs under Israeli bombing, amid continuing obstacles to aid delivery.
After three months spent in the enclave over the course of two deployments, Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer with the UN’s aid coordination office OCHA came back with “stories that will haunt [her] for the rest of [her] very privileged life”.
“We really, really should not speak about living conditions” in the Strip because no Gazans have “living” conditions, she told reporters in Geneva. “What they have, if you look closely, is survival conditions. And barely. They’re holding on by a thread.”
Ms. Guerda gave reporters a glimpse of the daily reality of a population which has “lost nearly everything” in the grips of mass forced displacement with “no centimetre” that is safe in Gaza. “You have 10 to 15 minutes to leave your building because it’s going to be bombed. Your kids are sleeping in the room next door. You wake them up, they whine... And you have to make split-second decisions to decide what to pack, what’s essential,” from birth certificates to baby formula, she recounted, stressing that this has been the experience of scores of “people who lived in Gaza city, in Jabalia, in Khan Yunis, in Deir el Beleh, and now Rafah”.
She also spoke of the horrific aftermath of the bombing of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza earlier this month as part of an Israeli military operation to release hostages held by Hamas, in which some 270 people were killed and 700 injured according to Gaza’s health authorities. “We were working a couple of kilometers away, and the walls, doors and windows of our building were shaking,” she said. Among the hundreds of people “maimed for life” as a result of the two-hour bombing, she spoke of the children who lost limbs and whom she met the next day at the nearby hospital, “many of whom reminded me of my own two little toddlers,” she added
“They were staring into the void – too shell-shocked to produce a sound or a tear,” she said.
Compounding the horror is the dramatically insufficient aid access in the enclave, where humanitarian delivery remains “a puzzle” amid “ongoing fighting, the public order and safety vacuum” as well as “regular attacks” on aid storage facilities, administrative challenges and hours spent waiting at checkpoints.
Describing the water and sanitation crisis in the Strip, Ms. Guerda spoke of the harrowing experiences of families whom she’s seen “dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons, using toilets and pipes from destroyed buildings so they could have a little bit of privacy and hygiene near their tents”.
The lack of fuel is hampering not only aid delivery, but also protection efforts including humanitarians’ ability to reach unaccompanied children on the move, Ms. Guerda warned. Moreover, mass displacement from Rafah since the beginning of Israel’s offensive there on 7 May meant that people lost access to the malnutrition screening centres which humanitarians had set up there. As a result, there are “thousands of children who were being followed or who were being screened that all of a sudden we lost track of,” she said.
Hunger is prevalent in Gaza and according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report published on Tuesday, the situation in the enclave “remains catastrophic” with a “high and sustained risk of famine across the whole Gaza Strip".
The report found that 96 per cent of the population is facing “acute food insecurity at crisis level or higher (IPC Category 3+), with almost half a million people in catastrophic conditions (IPC Category 5)”.
Ms. Guerda insisted that desperate Gazans urgently “need decision-makers to finally make a decisive gesture to put an end to the relentless way in which they are being knocked down after every attempt to get back up”.
“And they need the support of the rest of the world to do that,” she concluded.
-ends-
STORY: Gaza aid worker testimony - OCHA
TRT: 2:21”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 25 JUNE 2024 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior wide shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
2. Medium lateral shot: Speakers at the podium of the press conference from behind; speaker on screen in the Press room.
3. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “We really, really should not speak about living conditions there because none of them have living conditions. What they have, if you look closely, is survival conditions. And barely. They’re holding on by a thread.”
4. Wide shot: Journalists, cameraperson and technicians in the Press room.
5. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “You have 10 to 15 minutes to leave your building because it’s going to be bombed. Your kids are sleeping in the room next door. You wake them up, they whine, probably. And you have to make split-second decisions to decide what to pack, what’s essential. And how do you define “essential”? Birth certificates, IDs, baby formula?”
6. Wide lateral shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
7. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “The children who lost limbs that I met the next day at the nearby hospital, many of whom reminded me of my own two little toddlers: they were staring into the void – too shell-shocked to produce a sound or a tear.”
8. Medium shot: Journalists in the Press room.
9. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “Delivering aid in Gaza is a daily puzzle, across the board. You know it all: the ongoing fighting, the public order and safety vacuum, the insufficiency of absolutely everything we need, the regular attacks on our storage facilities, the pile of administrative impediments.”
10. Wide shot: Technicians’ booth; journalists in the Press room.
11. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “I’ve seen families dig makeshift septic tanks with spoons, using toilets and pipes from destroyed buildings so they could have a little bit of privacy and hygiene near their tents. You know, put some distance between themselves and their own waste.”
12. Wide shot: Cameraperson and technicians in the Press room.
13. SOUNDBITE (English) – Yasmina Guerda, humanitarian affairs officer, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):“When your population shifts and all of a sudden, people lose their access to their services, and the situation worsens, I believe for several weeks there were thousands of children who were being followed or who were being screened that all of a sudden we sort of lost track of because they moved.”
14. Wide lateral shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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