UN Warns of Mass Starvation as One in Five Gaza Children Goes Hungry
GAZA — One in five children in Gaza is now malnourished, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned Thursday, calling the situation a man-made disaster spiraling toward mass starvation, as reported by BBC News.
“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive — they are walking corpses,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said, citing frontline reports from aid workers. At least 100 people, mostly children, have reportedly died of hunger, and the numbers are rising daily.
The World Health Organization (WHO) echoed the alarm, describing Gaza as “starving.” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “mass starvation — and it’s man-made.”
Israel, which controls aid access into the besieged territory, denies imposing a blockade and blames Hamas for disruptions. But the UN insists aid is barely trickling in, and that Israel must lift restrictions to allow “uninterrupted humanitarian access.”
The crisis has driven prices to extremes. Flour is nearly unaffordable, and families are selling their last possessions to survive. “With my own eyes, I’ve seen children rummaging through garbage for food scraps,” said Hanaa Almadhoun, a mother of three in northern Gaza.
Aid distribution has also become deadly. According to the UN, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access food in the past two months — many near distribution centers run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), guarded by private contractors in Israeli military zones.
Israel and the US claim the system is efficient and blame Hamas for inciting chaos at aid points. But fear grips the population. “If we are to die from hunger, let it be,” said Dr. Aseel, a Gaza-based physician. “The path to aid is the path to death.”
Pregnant mother Walaa Fathi said she hopes her unborn child won’t be delivered into “a famine no one could have imagined.”
