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SvennoJ on 10 February 2025
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More on UN relief chief’s visit to Gaza

Tom Fletcher described north Gaza as a “horror show” and warned of a risk of famine if the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal collapses.

Here’s more of what he said:

“The threat of famine, I think, is largely averted now because we’ve got now three weeks of bread and food across. And so those, the starvation levels are down from where they were before the ceasefire,” Fletcher told the Associated Press news agency after his two-day visit.

“But the conditions are still terrible. You know, people are still hungry. There’s still a limit of the supplies that they have. And if the ceasefire falls, if the ceasefire breaks, then very quickly those conditions will come back again,” he added.


WHO slams ‘severe access constraints’ in Gaza

Hanan Balkhy, a top World Health Organization official, has called for “systematic and sustained” access to the people of Gaza, describing the suffering in the Strip as “beyond comprehension”.

She made the comments in a statement issued at a meeting of the WHO’s Executive Board.

Balkhy said the health system in Gaza was ruined, as almost no health facilities remained intact. Malnutrition is rising, while the risk of famine persists, she said.

The WHO is trying to restore essential health services despite “severe access constraints”, she said.

The body is “ready to scale up our response” but urgently needs “systematic and sustained access to the population across Gaza, and we need an end to restrictions on the entry of essential supplies”, she said.

“Equally critical is protecting civilians and health-care workers, expediting the evacuation of patients in urgent need of specialized care, and strengthening the referral system to East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” she added.


Children returning to north Gaza lack basics to survive, UNICEF says

Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for UNICEF, says families in the north of Gaza have been “shocked” at the scale of destruction in the area.

“This is particularly traumatic for children, who have endured so much already,” Ingram said in a video posted on X. “They are now coming back to communities without water and without healthcare, without the basics that they need to survive,” she added.