UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Gaza humanitarian update

Children in Gaza are going to bed starving, says aid agency
The biggest UN aid agency in Gaza on Tuesday condemned the two-month Israeli blockade on Gaza that has left families sharing a single tin of food at mealtime and the sick and injured without lifesaving medical help, amid daily bombardment.

“The siege on Gaza is the silent killer of children of older people,” said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA: “Families - whole families, seven or eight people - are resorting to sharing one can of beans or peas.”

In an update to journalists in Geneva, Ms. Touma stressed that thousands of trucks carrying relief supplies continue to be denied entry to Gaza. “We have just over 5,000 trucks in several parts of the region with lifesaving supplies that are ready to come in,” she explained.

“This decision is crippling the humanitarian efforts…and threatening the lives and survival of civilians in Gaza, who are also going through heavy bombardment day in, day out.”

Rafah ‘obliterated’

Destruction to the southern city of Rafah has left it “obliterated”, UNRWA said. Formerly the largest entry point for aid into the enclave via Egypt, aerial videos purportedly of Rafah show buildings levelled as far as the eye can see. “Rafah is nothing like the city it used to be…In every direction there is only destruction,” the UN agency said.

Today, 97 per cent of Rafah has been impacted by forced displacement orders, which have uprooted around 150,000 people. Almost 12 months ago, the Israeli military moved into Rafah, displacing 1.4 million people and leaving their homes, health facilities and shelters damaged or destroyed.

Starting from scratch

“More than 90 per cent of the population [of Gaza] have been displaced,” Ms. Touma continued. “Not once, not twice, some people have been displaced 12 times or 13 times, so on average, once a month - and so they have to start from scratch. The dependency on humanitarian aid is absolutely massive. We estimate that the entire population is reliant on humanitarian relief.”

Aid convoys ready and waiting

Before the war erupted in October 2023, Gazans relied on 500 trucks a day to deliver the food and other basic goods that they needed. But no humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered since 2 March this year, when Israel imposed a full blockade on the territory.

This is by far the longest ban on aid moving into the Strip since the start of the war in October 2023, following deadly Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel that killed some 1,250 people and left more than 250 taken hostage.

The blockade has emptied warehouses of food, medical supplies, shelter materials and safe water – fuelling a black market “where prices have increased from 10 to 20, sometimes 40 times, and you cannot give anything to your children and you’re seeing your children starving”, Ms. Touma said.

According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) food prices rose 1,400 per cent in recent weeks compared to the ceasefire period from 19 January to 18 March 2025.

Last Friday, the UN agency delivered its last remaining stocks to community kitchens that provide hot – if basic – meals of lentil soup and rice. The kitchens are expected to fully run out of food within days while another 16 closed over the weekend. In addition, all 25 WFP-supported bakeries have now closed.

“We're likely to see more community kitchens closing down for the simple reason that they need supplies,” Ms. Touma explained.

Burning plastic

Daily challenges for Gazans include finding food and fuel to cook, because of a lack of cooking gas. “Families are resorting to burning plastic to cook their meals,” UNRWA’s Ms. Touma said. “Imagine not having anything to feed your children. Children in Gaza are going to bed starving. The elderly and sick are not able to take to get medical care because of shortages in supplies in hospitals and clinics.”

UNRWA staff’s ordeal

Nearly 300 UNRWA staff have been killed since the war began in October 2023 and more than 50 of the UN agency’s staff have been allegedly “detained and abused” by the Israeli authorities, Ms. Touma noted.

“We received this awful testimony from a colleague who was rounded up in Gaza, tortured while in Israeli detention and finally released,” she maintained. “He said to the Commissioner-General [Philippe Lazzarini], ‘I wished for death to end the nightmare I was living through.’”

Condemning the alleged ill-treatment of UNRWA staff in Israeli prisons, Mr. Lazzarini insisted that they had been “subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them and their families and attacks by dogs. Many were subjected to forced confessions.”

Funding uncertainty

Meanwhile, UNRWA’s financial situation remains critical and “highly uncertain” based on current income forecasts and delays in forecasted contributions, Ms. Touma said. “Cashflow is managed monthly and we urgently require additional financial support if the agency is to survive.”

All partners that suspended funding to UNRWA in January 2024 amid allegations that some staff were involved in the 7 October attacks have now reinstated their support, except the United States.

However, in December last year, Sweden decided to stop all funding to UNRWA this year and the Netherlands will gradually decrease financial support to the agency over the next four years, starting in 2025 by reducing the amount from €19 million to €15 million, decreasing every year until 2029.

“The decision by Sweden and the Netherlands to stop/reduce funding to UNRWA in 2025 comes at the worst time for Palestine refugees,” the UN agency said.

ends

Gaza humanitarian update - UNRWA

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