Latest news with #Unrwa
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Health
- Middle East Eye
'Worst-case scenario of famine unfolding in Gaza,' declares global hunger monitor
The world's leading hunger monitoring system on Tuesday issued a warning that the "worst-case scenario of famine" is unfolding in Gaza due to the Israel-imposed starvation and siege. 'Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,' the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in a new report. 'Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.' The warning comes as nearly 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have succumbed to death from starvation since March. "Malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July," the IPC said. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished. Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children under five years of age, with at least 16 reported deaths since 17 July." The IPC called for immediate action to end the siege and allow for unimpeded access to humanitarian aid. Unrwa, the UN's largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has told MEE that it has had 6,000 aid trucks in Egypt and Jordan for over four and a half months awaiting Israeli permits to enter Gaza. The IPC's latest analysis in May projected that by September the entire 2.1 million population would face acute food insecurity and more than 500,000 people would reach a state of extreme starvation. This is a developing story...
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Can air drops solve the Gaza crisis? Aid agencies are sceptical
The UK is set to join Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in air dropping aid into Gaza as starvation and malnutrition have reached perilous levels in the war-torn strip. Following pressure from the international community, Israel has announced brief 'humanitarian pauses' between 10am and 8pm each day to allow more aid to be delivered to starving Palestinians, as US president Donald Trump said on Monday: 'They have to get food and safety right now.' The World Health Organisation has warned that malnutrition is on a 'dangerous trajectory' in the Gaza Strip, with 63 deaths in July. Around one in five small children in Gaza City are now acutely malnourished, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa). Air dropping is a controversial method of aid distribution, as humanitarian organisations have cited a number of safety and efficiency issues. Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) operations manager Jacob Burns called it 'humanitarian theatre', adding 'it's absolutely not the only way' to get aid into Gaza. 'For the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), air drops really are a last resort,' spokesperson Sarah Davies told The Independent, as the method comes with its own set of challenges. Here's all you need to know about the controversial aid distribution method. What is air dropping? Air dropping is usually reserved for instances where it is hard to get aid where it needs to go. It involves dropping food items or non food items into an area from an aeroplane. Usually they require a predetermined location with staff on the ground, who have cleared the area of other people, of buildings, or anything that could be damaged or damage the goods themselves. The aid then needs to be distributed on the ground. 'The most efficient way to do this is through things like international organisations who are experienced in this,' said Ms Davies. She added that the ICRC was not currently involved in the air drops. 'We can't deliver assistance in a way that risks people or exposing them to harm. We work by assessing the needs throughout the areas of Gaza, where we're present, and we respond directly to those needs.' The dangers of air dropping In the densely populated Gaza Strip, air dropping faces a new challenge of distributing aid without causing harm to individuals. 'The primary danger of the air drop is you cannot safely aim a pallet of aid,' said Mr Burns. 'People have already been killed by aid drops in Gaza.' Five people died in March last year after at least one parachute failed to deploy in an aid package air drop, leading a parcel to fall on people, according to Gaza's health ministry. As well as the spacial safety issues, the sheer desperation of citizens can put their safety at risk as they race to get to the food source first. 'If you're starving and suddenly you see food drop out of the sky, obviously you're going to run towards that aid and it's a situation where the strongest will win,' said Mr Burns. He added that separate to Israel's claims that Hamas has been stealing aid, criminal gangs have used violence to loot aid - and air dropping offers no further control over that problem. 'If you're just throwing aid randomly into the Gaza strip then you have no idea who can control that.' How effectively does it distribute food? According to the International Committee for the Red Cross, air drops are a less efficient form of transporting aid than land transportation. 'They're really quite unsustainable, because they are very expensive', said Ms Davies, who cited that aeroplanes require fuelling and mechanical requirements that can make it a more expensive operation to supply 'quite limited amounts of items in a way that, unfortunately, we see doesn't always reach those who really need it'. Mr Burns added that air drops don't allow for as much aid to get in as land transportation would as he called on Israel to 'let aid in in a flood rather than a trickle, which is what air drops are.' The ideal way of distributing aid The MSF worker then called for 'organised massive distributions of aid that can meet everyone's needs'. Land transportation, in which aid is brought into Gaza via trucks by humanitarian organisations, was named by the ICRC as a more effective approach to aid distribution because aid workers can bring in more supplies in a less time consuming, resource consuming way. The World Food Programme has said it has enough food to feed the entire population of 2.1 million people for almost three months. 'While we do welcome any decisions, any changes that mean that more aid reaches more people, we do reiterate that it needs to be done in a way where people are given dignified access to aid,' said Ms Davies. 'Doing aid entry and aid distribution from land transportation allows international organisations who have experience of decades of work in Gaza, who have the trust of the communities in Gaza to do so in this way.'
The Citizen
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
Words won't feed Gaza Strip
Now it is a systematic attempt to destroy a particular group of people, also known as genocide. Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip near Beit Hanoun, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, 27 July 2025. Picture: EPA/ATEF SAFADI I have no words. I have a million words, I want to speak about Gaza, but what can I add about Gaza? More words won't feed anyone, yet people are starving; no, being starved to death. Because this is an entirely manmade famine. Just a few kilometres away, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) has 6 000 truckloads of food and medical supplies lined up to enter Gaza, but Israel blocks them. Even Unrwa's own staff in Gaza are weak with hunger, though they still have salaries to buy food. The reality is there's just no food. Meanwhile, as over 100 aid agencies warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the region, on Saturday, Benjamin Netanyahu's government declared it would start airdropping wheat, sugar and tinned food, a sop to the international outcry. ALSO READ: Children starve in Gaza as EU powers push ceasefire talks Here is a settlement of Palestinian refugees, packed in tight, with nowhere to go. It was always difficult, the political landscape intractable, rights and wrongs on both sides, and people – like me – were wary of saying anything because it was complex, fearing accusations of anti-Semitism, but now it's become impossible. Now it is a systematic attempt to destroy a particular group of people, also known as genocide. They say when someone tells you who they are, you should listen, so the recent words of far-right Israeli government minister Amichai Eliyahu should be noted. 'There is no nation that feeds its enemies,' he said on the radio, likening the situation to Russia feeding Ukraine, as if Gaza were an autonomous country, adding that the Israeli government was 'rushing toward Gaza being wiped out', and 'driving out the population that educated its people on the ideas of Mein Kampf.' ALSO READ: More than 100 NGOs warn 'mass starvation' spreading across Gaza Netanyahu responded that this wasn't government policy, but actions tell a different story. Eliyahu is correct about the decimation: 70% of buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, over 58 000 are dead, 2 000 families have been entirely wiped out. This is not a country they're annihilating in Gaza so much as a vast refugee camp created after the 1948 Palestine War, which Israel has continued to encroach upon, control and occupy, contrary to international convention and law. So perhaps it's no surprise that existing arrest warrants for war crimes do not faze Netanyahu, who reasons his people were ever victimised. Yet he forgets that sometimes victims become abusers too. READ NEXT: Israeli strikes kill children collecting water in Gaza
Middle East Eye
4 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Unrwa chief says Israel spread false aid theft claims to control relief
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has accused Israel of fabricating claims that Hamas was stealing large amounts of aid, saying the allegations were designed to push out humanitarian groups and tighten Israeli control over food distribution in Gaza. 'No proof of aid diversion in Gaza,' Unrwa Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote on social media. He said the accusations were part of a deliberate effort to damage the reputation of international relief agencies. 'Claims were only aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the humanitarian community & attempting to replace it with a diabolic and politically motivated distribution scheme,' he added. 'It's time for principled and at scale humanitarian response including through Unrwa.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
‘In Gaza, starvation hits us mentally and physically. $2,000 won't even buy two weeks' bread'
For Hassan, surviving famine in Gaza is about the calculations he faces daily – starting with how to precisely split a single piece of bread so that each quarter is a meal. He walks three miles every day to look for vegetables, and spends hours getting firewood to cook what little food he can find. Last week he spent four days looking in vain for flour, rice or pasta – instead he saw people fainting on the streets from lack of food. After finding three cans of beans, he worried for hours about the best way to portion them up between a family of five, even consulting ChatGPT for strategies to ration out the calories. Hassan has lost more than 38kg (six stone) since March, when Israel began a full blockade of Gaza and food rapidly became scarce. 'We have to calculate everything to ensure our survival,' he said. 'This kind of starvation – it's hitting us mentally, not just physically. That's the struggle.' Despite this, Hassan is considered one of the lucky ones. His work with the United Nations agency for refugees, Unrwa, means he has a steady income. But even this is no longer enough to feed his family. He managed to evacuate his wife and children earlier in the war, staying behind to care for his elderly parents. Hassan pools his monthly wage with his brother's and sister's incomes so that they and their parents can eat once or maybe twice each day. Unrwa requested Hassan's name was changed here for his protection. Being able to afford a daily meal is now considered a luxury when many say they are going days at a time without eating. At least 100 people have died from malnutrition in Gaza according to the UN, most of them children. The UN's Office for Humanitarian Affairs, Ocha, says most of Gaza's 2 million people are surviving on one small meal each day, and the World Food Programme estimates 500,000 people are starving. 'For me, as one well paid in comparison with other people in Gaza, I get around $2,000 (£1,490) a month – this wouldn't even cover the cost of eating bread for half the month now,' said Hassan. The few places selling sugar do so at £1.50 a gram using scales from a jewellery shop A punishing money transfer system to get his wages in cash takes almost half his salary, further raising the cost of food: £22 for a kilo of tomatoes, £18 for cucumbers or £35 for a bag of onions – all so expensive he buys one at a time. The few places selling sugar or coffee granules do so at £1.50 a gram, using scales that were once used in jewellery shops for measuring small amounts of gold. The cans of beans that Hassan rationed so carefully cost almost £8 each; before the war they cost one shekel, or 20p. He reminisced about when the smallest amount of sugar on sale was a 3kg bag. 'Last week my mother asked us to sell one of her gold bracelets from her wedding dowry, to feel she's contributing and isn't being a burden to us,' he said. Reluctantly, her children agreed. Hassan recently noticed that it can take him an hour to write an email because his focus has dimmed because of constant hunger. Officials from three UN agencies told The Observer they are increasingly fearful for their staff, whom they have seen faint from hunger. Journalists from three major news agencies and the BBC also stated last week that their Gaza colleagues faced the same conditions as those they reported on, meaning they were often unable to work owing to lack of food. Juliette Touma, Unrwa's director of communications, said: 'We have about 12,000 staff, the largest number of UN staff in Gaza, and they are saying to us that they can't work any more as they're simply exhausted – they are walking miles to find anything to eat. Our staff are fainting while on duty, so the caretakers in Gaza are in need of care themselves.' Unrwa alone has 6,000 trucks' worth of aid sitting in Jordan and Egypt Since Israel increased its blockade of Gaza in early March, only a trickle of aid has been able to enter with the UN. Instead, Washington and the Israeli authorities have backed a highly controversial militarised scheme to distribute boxes of food called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which claims to have distributed millions of meals despite a visibly deepening famine. This scheme has also proved deadly – the UN's human rights office estimates that more than 1,000 people have been killed seeking aid since GHF launched operations. Touma estimates Unrwa alone has 6,000 trucks' worth of aid sitting in Jordan and Egypt. Israeli authorities pointed to a buildup of aid at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, claiming that the UN was failing in its duties to collect it. Speaking in front of pallets of aid at the crossing, Col Abdullah Halabi, with the Israeli military body that oversees aid into Gaza, blamed 'a lack of cooperation from the international community and international organisations'. Max Rodenbeck of the International Crisis Group mourned the collapse of ceasefire talks, calling the famine 'an entirely manmade disaster' and urging Israel to open to doors to international aid. Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for Ocha in Gaza, said collecting the aid required extensive coordination with the Israeli authorities as almost 90% of Gazan territory was now under either evacuation orders or in military zones. 'If an aid collection mission is approved, you have to wait sometimes up to 46 hours to move around, as there has to be coordination with troops on the ground, so they pause fighting and allow us to manoeuvre between their ground operations,' she said. 'This can take hours, or lead to nowhere when we wait for a green light that never comes.' Photograph by AFP/Getty
