Famine in Gaza can be stopped: UNRWA
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has renewed its call on Israel to allow the agency to bring aid into Gaza to stop the ongoing famine.
“UNRWA’s warehouses alone in Jordan and Egypt are full. There is enough food, medicines and hygiene supplies ready to fill 6,000 trucks,” the agency said in a statement on X.
“Reverse the ongoing catastrophe – flood Gaza with a massive scale up of aid through the United Nations including UNRWA.”
On Friday, the UN classification system used to determine access to food officially declared famine in Gaza, saying more than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions, which include starvation, destitution and death.
#Famine in Gaza City can be stopped.
Reverse the ongoing catastrophe - flood #Gaza with a massive scale up of aid through the United Nations including UNRWA.
UNRWA’s warehouses alone in Jordan and Egypt are full.
There is enough food, medicines and hygiene supplies ready to… pic.twitter.com/owm40GXuac
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 23, 2025
Deir el-Balah projected to be ‘pushed into famine’ in coming weeks
Dan Stewart, head of news at Save the Children, says there is “no world leader” who has not been warned about the prospect of famine in Gaza before the UN-backed IPC classification system found yesterday that famine was now officially present in the enclave.
“You can see the impact in our nutrition clinics where every bench, every room is packed with thin mothers and babies coming in for treatment,” Stewart told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah.
“Our teams as well are saying that, sadly, not all of these children are responding to treatment any more because conditions are so bad outside of the clinics, and that’s increasingly heartbreaking for our teams to see.”
Stewart added that Deir el-Balah is projected to be “pushed into famine” in the coming weeks unless the situation changes.
“But in our nutrition clinics right now, well over half of pregnant women and new mothers are malnourished,” he said, adding that this is the “inevitable consequence of months without food”.
Ten hospitals needed to treat malnutrition cases in Gaza: Hospital director
The director of the children’s hospital at Nasser Medical Complex, Dr Ahmad al-Farra, has spoken to Al Jazeera about the dire malnutrition crisis facing children in the coastal enclave. Here are his translated comments:
- We have 120 cases of malnutrition in the hospital.
- We need 10 hospitals to treat these cases.
- Children in Gaza will suffer the consequences of malnutrition for the rest of their lives.
- Tens of thousands of children in displacement camps are suffering from malnutrition.
