“The experiences of the desperate parents I met this past week can illustrate this better than I could,” UNICEF Communication Specialist, Salim Oweis told journalists attending the bi-weekly humanitarian briefing at the UN in Geneva. 

Among them is Hind who hasn’t slept ever since her daughter Masa, 4, was bitten by a rat during the night.

They are sheltering in a building “where sewage water leaks through the ceilings, and rodents crawl through the cracks in the building and climb the exposed pipes.” 

Agony and defeat 

Another mother, Amani, is caring for her daughter Lemar, 7, who has lesions and sores on her head, back and legs from a bacterial infection. 

“Amani tries to clean her wounds each day with the little, hard-to-get, clean water she has, as her daughter screams in agony,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Abdel Aleem and his family have layered sandbags around the outside of their tent to ward off rats who “simply chew through it” as “stopping them is futile.”    

Both he and his eight-month-old son Ahmad, as well his pregnant sister-in-law, were already bitten in recent weeks. 

Parents feel helpless 

“The common thread running through every one of these conversations is the sheer heartbreak of parents who no longer feel able to do the thing most innate to them – protect their children’s health and safety,” said Mr. Olweis. 

The situation is easy to understand just by looking at the conditions in Gaza, he added, which was already among the most densely populated places in the world.   

“Now, people have been crammed into around 40 per cent of the space left to them – sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste,” he said. 

“Families across Gaza do not have enough clean water, they are forced to choose between drinking, washing and cooking with what little they have.” 

Obstacles and restrictions 

UNICEF is working to reach up to 1.5 million people a month with clean water but continues to face significant obstacles. 

Last month, two UNICEF-contracted truck drivers were killed while trying to collect water at Al Mansoura filling point. The water filling station – which more than a quarter of million people rely on – is now inaccessible.  

At the same time, critical items needed to sustain water systems and repair damaged water infrastructure – such as oil, water treatment chemicals and spare parts – are not being allowed into Gaza at the scale needed. 

Furthermore, solid waste is piling up by the day, alongside rubble, and both need to be cleared away.   

Disease, diarrhea and infections 

“The effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhoea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases,” said Mr. Olweis. 

“Fleas, lice, and scabies are commonplace. Increasing numbers of children are requiring hospitalization. All without a single fully functioning hospital across Gaza.” 

Moreover, even though humanitarians have managed to reverse famine conditions, “the number of malnourished and vulnerable children remain extremely serious.” 

He warned that “without enough clean water and fuel to cook proper meals, even children who recover with treatment will quickly fall back in a cycle of malnutrition – the effects of which can last a lifetime.”  

An ‘entirely unconscionable’ situation 

Mr. Olweis stressed that “no parent should be in a position where they cannot provide their child with the basic needs to keep them healthy.” 

They also should not have to watch their children suffer pain from lesions or weakness due to preventable diarrhoea. 

“That this is happening should be – to everyone – entirely unconscionable,” he said. “Access to water, adequate nutritious food, and healthcare should not be conditional for any child, anywhere.” 

To break the cycle of suffering in Gaza, UNICEF calls for unfettered access for humanitarian operations, lifting restrictions on items needed to repair and sustain water and sanitation systems, and for international humanitarian law to be upheld.

On day six of the war in the Middle East, there’s been no let-up in bombs, drones and rockets targeting Iran, Israel, Lebanon and many Gulf States, while NATO forces reportedly intercepted a missile fired at Turkïye by Iran, a claim denied by Tehran. We’ll bring you the latest from the United Nations and our partners at headquarters and in the field. UN News app users can follow the coverage here.

In an update from Ukraine, the UN’s top aid official there, Assistant Secretary-General Matthias Schmale, reports that half the population in Kherson city, about 30,000 or more residents, have been without electricity for several days.

It’s not the only city without power, he told UN News on Wednesday, while on mission to southern Ukraine:

“The big challenge is how do you support people if electricity is cut off for several days, more than a week, let’s say, in a row, like is currently the case in Odesa,” he said.

Sustained damage

“The authorities are fairly confident that they can deal with a couple of hours or even a couple of days in a row. but more than a week will be very challenging.”

The Humanitarian Coordinator said that one solution to the energy crisis was to ensure that schools and health centres are provided with generators and enough fuel, “so that people can gather there, if there is a crisis and if needed for several days in a row”.

Mr. Schmale was in the frontline city of Kherson on Wednesday, which lies directly across the Dnipro River from land occupied by Russian invaders in southern Ukraine.

While there, he met civilians at a UN humanitarian hub who had come seeking aid. One woman who is a power plant worker said she was very afraid of being targeted while on the job.

‘Almost everything has been destroyed’

She said there were five houses left on her street where people still live and “almost everything has been destroyed.”

“I don’t even think about it. My home, my dogs, my cats. The neighbours left after their houses were hit. They left their dog for a week. They have been gone for three years now.”

Another woman who Humanitarian Coordinator Schmale met said she was from there Kherson Island district and was living without gas for heat or cooking. Her mother died in hospital 10 days ago due to a landmine accident.

Six months before that, her husband died while using public transportation in Mykolaiv, during a drone attack.

She started crying while remembering all the people she had lost, and fears that it may not be possible for her to return home.

‘I prefer to smile rather than cry’

“Kherson used to be a very industrial city, but not anymore,” said another pensioner. When she was young, she worked on building weather instruments for ships.

Mr. Schmale complimented her on her great sense of humour in the face of adversity. “I prefer to smile rather than cry. I’ve already had a lot of time to cry,” she replied.

“I just want to go back home and die there,” she added poignantly.

“Intensified strikes on Gaza City, including on tents, residential buildings, infrastructure continue to inflict heavy casualties,” the UN aid coordination agency, OCHA, said.

In an update, the UN agency also noted that several health facilities have shut in Gaza City in the north of the enclave this month along with community kitchens, which have also closed as the Israeli military operation continues.

The development followed an urgent warning about the catastrophic impact of the war on Gaza’s children – “killed while sleeping, playing, queuing for food and water, seeking medical care” – from the UN’s top aid official, Tom Fletcher.

“They’ve been bombed, maimed, starved, burned alive, buried in the rubble of their homes, separated from their parents…scraping through the rubble for food, enduring amputations without anaesthetic,” he said, at a scheduled event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

To address this crisis, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisional measures that require Israel to facilitate urgently assistance throughout Gaza must be implemented, insisted Mr. Fletcher, while also highlighting the Israeli children killed or taken hostage during Hamas-led terror attacks on 7 October 2023.

Other key UN updates from Gaza:

• Among many reported attacks in the last week, on 19 September, a four-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl were killed and others injured when their tent was hit in Al Mawasi, Khan Younis, OCHA said.
• Amid ongoing famine across the Strip, a two-kilogramme bundle of bread now costs more than $9, compared with 30 cents at UN-supported bakeries in early 2025.
• In the week to 23 September, out of 94 attempts to coordinate aid missions planned movements with Israeli authorities across the Gaza Strip, only 35 went ahead.
• No aid has been collected in northern Gaza since the Zikim crossing was closed on 12 September. This has forced aid partners who provide cooked meals to bring supplies from the south despite heavy congestion on Al Rashid Road and continuing security concerns.
• This week in northern Gaza, there has been a reduction of about 50,000 daily meals compared with 109,000 meals last weekend, after some community kitchens closed as the military offensive escalates in Gaza City.
• In southern Gaza, families shelter “squeezed into makeshift tents along the beach” or are packed into overcrowded schools. Others have to sleep out in the open and amid rubble, while basic services are ‘beyond capacity’.
• Fighting between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces has also been reported in Gaza City in addition to rocket fire by Palestinian armed groups into Israel on 21 September.
• Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents sheltering internally displaced people and people seeking aid have been reported once again, with reports of controlled detonations.
• In a 48-hour period between 19 and 20 September, at least 51 Palestinians were killed in 18 recorded attacks on residential buildings in Gaza City; almost all of those killed were civilians, according to the UN human rights office.
• “Additional waves of displacement” particularly from Gaza City, have been caused by new evacuation orders by Israel, its ongoing military ground operations and bombardment, OCHA stressed.
• The key Allenby Bridge crossing point for aid relief from Jordan via the occupied West Bank remains closed after a Jordanian truck driver shot and killed two Israeli soldiers. In August, about one quarter of relief items entering Gaza through the UN 2720 mechanism came via Jordan, including food, tents, and other urgently needed supplies.

Latest data from the Gaza authorities indicates that in the week to 24 September, 357 Palestinians were killed and 1,463 were injured. Since 7 October 2023, more than 65,400 people have been killed in Gaza and 167,160 have been injured.

The number of casualties among those trying to access aid supplies has increased to 2,531 fatalities and more than 18,531 injuries since 27 May 2025, OCHA noted.

In addition, as of 19 September, 440 malnutrition-related deaths including 147 children have been documented, since October 2023.

The UK and 27 other countries have called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza, where they say the suffering of civilians has “reached new depths”.

A joint statement says Israel’s aid delivery model is dangerous and condemns what it calls the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians” seeking food and water.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food over the weekend and that 19 others died as a result of malnutrition.

Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the countries’ statement, saying it was “disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”.

The ministry accused the armed group of spreading lies and undermining aid distribution, rather than agreeing to a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

There have been many international statements condemning Israel’s tactics in Gaza during the past 21 months of its war with Hamas. But this declaration is notable for its candour.

The signatories are the foreign ministers of the UK and 27 other nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland.

The statement begins by declaring that “the war in Gaza must end now”.

It then warns: “The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity.”

“We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.”

There have been almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed while waiting for food since May, when Israel partially eased an 11-week total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza and, along with the US, helped to establish a new aid system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to bypass the existing one overseen by the UN.

Israel has said the GHF’s system, which uses US private security contractors to hand out food parcels from sites inside Israeli military zones, prevents supplies being stolen by Hamas.

But the UN and its partners have refused to co-operate with the system, saying it is unsafe and violates the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence.

Last Tuesday, the UN human rights office said it had recorded 674 killings in the vicinity of the GHF’s aid sites since they began operating eight weeks ago. Another 201 killings had been recorded along routes of UN and other aid convoys, it added.

On Saturday, another 39 people were killed near two GHF sites in Khan Younis and nearby Rafah, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The Israeli military said its troops fired warning shots to prevent “suspects” approaching them before the sites opened.

And on Sunday, the ministry said 67 people were killed as they surged toward a convoy of UN aid lorries near a crossing point in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots at a crowd “to remove an immediate threat” but disputed the numbers killed.

Following the incident, the World Food Programme warned that Gaza’s hunger crisis had “reached new levels of desperation”.

“People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment,” the UN agency said.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Monday that 19 people had died as a result of malnutrition since Saturday and warned of potential “mass deaths” in the coming days.

“Hospitals can no longer provide food for patients or staff, many of whom are physically unable to continue working due to extreme hunger,” Dr Khalil al-Daqran, a spokesperson for al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, told the BBC.

“Hospitals cannot provide a single bottle of milk to children suffering from hunger, because all baby formula has run out from the market,” he added.

Residents also reported that markets were closed due to food shortages.

“My children cry from hunger all night. They’ve had only a small plate of lentils over the past three days. There’s no bread. A kilogramme of flour was $80 (£59) a week ago,” Mohammad Emad al-Din, a barber and father of two, told the BBC.

The statement by the 27 countries also says Israeli proposals to move Gaza’s entire 2.1 million into a so-called “humanitarian city” in the southern Rafah area are unacceptable, noting that “permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law”.

They urge Israel, Hamas and the international community to “bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire”.

And they warn that they are “prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace”.

That is seen by many as code for recognising a state of Palestine, something many countries have done but not all, including the UK and France.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein rejected the criticism.

“All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas, which started this war and is prolonging it,” he said.

“Instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel. At the same time, Hamas is deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid,” he added.

The Israeli military said earlier this month that it recognised there had been incidents in which civilians had been harmed while seeking aid and that it was working to minimise “possible friction between the population and the [Israeli] forces as much as possible”.

The Israeli military body responsible for co-ordinating aid, Cogat, also said on Monday that Israel “acts in accordance with international law and is leading efforts to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza in co-ordination with the international organisations”.

A spokesperson for the GHF meanwhile appealed to UN agencies to join its operation while also blaming them for “stopping” work and for failing to deliver supplies across the territory.

Chapin Fay told journalists that he had been to border crossings where he saw aid supplies “rotting” because UN agencies would not deliver them.

The Israeli foreign ministry said on Sunday that 700 lorry loads of aid were waiting to be picked up by the UN from crossings.

The UN has said it struggles to pick up and distribute supplies because of the ongoing hostilities, Israeli restrictions on humanitarian movements, and fuel shortages.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 59,029 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari said more than 1,000 Palestinians had been killed since mid-June alone, many of them while seeking aid.

Citing figures from the Gazan health authorities, he reported that the total number of Palestinian fatalities since 7 October 2023 had surpassed 56,500.

“The level of suffering and brutality in Gaza is unbearable,” Mr. Khiari said. “The continued collective punishment of the Palestinian people is unjustifiable.”

Killed trying to access aid

Mr. Khiari cited multiple incidents involving the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opening fire near food distribution points.

On 17 June, at least 50 people were killed and 200 injured in Khan Younis when an IDF tank opened fire on a crowd waiting for UN World Food Programme (WFP) aid trucks.

Once again a week later, IDF troops reportedly opened fire near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, this time killing 49 Palestinians and injuring 197 others.

“We strongly condemn the loss of lives and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza,” Mr. Khiari said. “We call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

He emphasised that the UN “will not participate in any aid delivery modality that does not comply with the fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality,” a sentiment which other UN officials have repeatedly said as well.

Strong condemnation

Mr. Khiari reiterated the UN’s strong condemnation of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for their attacks in Israel, which killed over 1,200 people and led to more than 250 being taken hostage. Fifty hostages, including one woman, remain in captivity.

“Nothing can justify these acts of terror. We remain appalled that hostages may be subjected to ongoing ill-treatment and that the bodies of hostages continue to be withheld,” he said.

At the same time, he also condemned “the widespread killing and injury of civilians in Gaza, including children and women, and the destruction of homes, schools, hospitals and mosques.”

Rising violence in the West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli raids and settler violence have escalated.  

Mr. Khiari reported that a 15-year-old boy and an elderly woman were killed in separate incidents on 25 June. Armed settlers also killed several Palestinians during attacks in Surif and Kafr Malik.

“The escalating violence in the occupied West Bank is alarming,” Khiari said, warning that military operations and settler expansion are leading to fatalities, displacement and destruction.

Iran-Israel ceasefire brings hope to the region

Mr. Khiari concluded his briefing with comments on the wider Middle East region, particularly the recent flare-up between Israel and Iran.

He welcomed the 24 June ceasefire agreement between the two countries, announced by US President Donald Trump, and credited US and Qatari mediation.

“We hope that this ceasefire can be replicated in the other conflicts in the region – nowhere is this more needed than in Gaza,” he said.

In occupied East Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli protesters illegally entered a compound of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.

The development comes after the Israeli military coordination unit COGAT said on Saturday that 388 trucks had entered Gaza since last Monday – the first aid to arrive in well over two months of blockade that have caused hunger levels to spike.

Humanitarians have repeatedly warned that at least 500 to 600 trucks need to cross into Gaza every day to provide people with their daily needs – as they did before war erupted on 7 October 2023 after Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel.

Token assistance

“We are on the back of 11 weeks of nothing entering the Gaza Strip, no food, no medicines for 11 weeks, nothing apart from bombs,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“And so today, a week after life-saving aid was finally allowed into Gaza again, the scale of that aid is painfully inadequate,” he told UN News. “It looks like a token that appears more like cynical optics than any real attempt to tackle the soaring hunger crisis among children and civilians in Gaza.”

Today, Gazans remain at “critical risk of famine”, UN-backed food security experts warned earlier this month. In their latest update, they estimated that one in five people in Gaza – 500,000 – faces starvation.

Another school hit

Reports on Monday indicated meanwhile that Israel’s intensifying military operation in northern Gaza against alleged terrorists and their infrastructure had killed at least 50 people in air strikes.

One attack hit a school in Gaza City sheltering hundreds of people uprooted by more than 19 months of violence. Footage reportedly taken after the incident showed the silhouette of a child stumbling through a classroom set ablaze at Fahmi al-Jarjawi school.

Another air strike hit a home elsewhere in Gaza City killing four people, according to the health authorities.

UN-run shelters are now “overwhelmed with displaced people desperately seeking safety”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said in an update on Monday. It also underscored that the lack of food has added to people’s suffering.

“Many families are sheltering in abandoned, unfinished, or damaged buildings,” the agency explained. “Sanitation conditions are dire; in some cases, hundreds of people are having to share a single toilet. Others, including children and pregnant women, are sleeping in the open.”

Farming smashed

Across Gaza, less than five per cent of the Strip’s cropland remains available for cultivation, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).

Using high-definition imagery, the agencies’ findings emphasize just how much food production capacity has shrunk in Gaza because of the war, exacerbating  the risk of famine.

As of April 2025, more than 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s total cropland area has been damaged (12,537 hectares out of 15,053) and 77.8 percent is not accessible to farmers, leaving just 688 hectares (4.6 percent) available for cultivation.

The situation is particularly critical in Rafah and in the northern governorates, where nearly all cropland is not accessible.

Settler protest

Following the protest at the UNRWA compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday, a spokesperson for the UN agency noted that one member of the Israeli Knesset had joined the settlers inside the gates. Monday is a national holiday in Israel, marking the moment following the Six-Day War in 1967 when the country’s troops occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The UNRWA facility – located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem – has been targeted in past arson attacks that set light to the perimeter fence.

At the end of January, UNRWA withdrew its staff from the compound under protest at the entry into force of an Israeli law banning the agency’s operations in occupied East Jerusalem.

The location retains its status as a UN facility that is protected under international law. 

“With no viable peace in sight, the Sudanese are trapped in a humanitarian crisis of industrial proportions,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.

“Two out of three people need aid, that’s 30 million people…This, of course, demands a massive ramp-up of international support; what we see instead is donors pulling back funding across the world.”

The war between rival militaries – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – began on 15 April 2023 after a breakdown in transition to civilian rule, following the overthrow of long-time President Omar al-Bashir. Heavy fighting has levelled towns and cities and claimed tens of thousands of lives.

At least 12.4 million people have been uprooted from their homes, including more than 3.3 million refugees.

Rape as a weapon of war

Since the outset, relief workers and others including the UN human rights office, OHCHR, have repeatedly warned that sexual violence remains pervasive across Sudan.

“One survivor recounted that she was told, ‘We are your men now,’ before RSF fighters raped her in front of her children,” said Li Fung, OHCHR Representative in Sudan, speaking to journalists in Geneva via video link from Nairobi.

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reiterated deep concerns about the 25 million Sudanese facing famine. “Two years of war has turned Sudan into the world’s largest hunger catastrophe and famine is spreading,” said Leni Kinzli, WFP Communications Officer for Sudan, also speaking from the Kenyan capital.

Invaluable support

In an appeal for funding to support the UN agency’s work, she testified to the value of food assistance for internally displaced people (IDPs): “It means that a father who has been torn from his home in Khartoum can feed his family of four; it means that a mother in an IDP camp in Kassala can cook a simple meal for her young daughters and so that they don’t fall into malnutrition.”

Amid reports that the paramilitary RSF paramilitary had taken the key Darfur town of Um Kadadah from the SAF, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that attacks on healthcare personnel and facilities “are on the rise”.

The past two years have seen 156 confirmed attacks on health “causing more than 300 deaths and over 270 injuries among either patients or healthcare workers”, said

Dr Shible Sahbani, WHO Representative in Sudan, speaking via video link from Cairo.

Funding cuts dilemma

Echoing those concerns, UN Women reported that 80 per cent of hospitals in conflict areas are no longer functioning, with maternal deaths rising “alarmingly”.

A full eight in 10 displaced women and girls in Sudan now lack access to clean water, said Sofia Calltorp, UN Women Director in Geneva, highlighting the impact of deep cuts to funding for humanitarian work globally.

“The latest global cuts in humanitarian funding have put critical programmes at risk, with teams forced to make unreasonable choices and refugees being left to resort to harmful strategies to meet their basic needs,” said UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Olga Sarrado.

“Inside Sudan, reduced funding will cut access to clean water for at least half a million displaced people, significantly increasing risks of cholera and other waterborne diseases,” she added.

Mohamed Refaat, IOM Chief of Mission in Sudan, was speaking to reporters after returning from previously inaccessible Khartoum state, which is now back under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

War erupted between the SAF and former ally the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, and civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence. 

Recent weeks have seen intense fighting around the capital city, Khartoum, which had mostly been under RSF control.

‘Unimaginable’ destruction

Mr. Refaat said that even he was shocked by the level of destruction in the city.

“Electricity stations have been looted; the water pipes have been destroyed. And I’m not talking about some areas. I’m talking about everywhere I went,” he said.

The veteran aid worker has served in other conflict situations, including Libya and Yemen, “and the level of destruction I have seen in Bahri, Khartoum, is unimaginable,” he remarked.

“There has been targeting of not only people’s houses, but administrative areas, not military areas, but all the basic infrastructure that can maintain lives for people.”

Massive re-investment is needed to help all those returning to the Sudanese capital after nearly two years of war, he said.

Horrors all around

Mr. Refaat described meeting Sarah, an elderly maths teacher, unable to flee the violence. Her days had been “filled with horror”, witnessing the loss of loved ones, seeing homes destroyed and being surrounded by the permanent threat of violence and sexual abuse.

“Sarah’s decision to stay was driven by necessity,” he explained. “As an elderly woman, it would be dangerous and challenging to go by foot, and she has no transportation.”

In the absence of funding, many non-government organizations (NGOs) have stopped working or reduced operations. Mr. Refaat insisted that there are many more people like Sarah who have received no assistance.

Funding crisis widespread

“Funding has dried (up) but not only from Member States, but also from diaspora and charity organizations,” he said.

He stressed that more humanitarian funding is urgently needed for medicine, shelter, drinking water, education, and healthcare.

IOM is seeking $250 million to assist some 1.7 million people in Sudan this year but less than 10 per cent of funding has been received. 

“We will not give up on these objectives,” António Guterres said during a press encounter at the UN Office in Geneva.

Airstrikes resume, aid blocked

In a statement issued earlier in the day, UN Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said Mr. Guterres was “shocked” by the Israeli strikes, which reportedly killed hundreds overnight.

He issued a strong appeal for both sides to uphold the ceasefire and allow humanitarian assistance to resume.

Worst fears materialised

Briefing the Security Council on the dire humanitarian situation, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher confirmed that Israeli forces had resumed widespread airstrikes, accompanied by new evacuation orders.

“Our worst fears materialised,” he said, describing the renewed hostilities as a devastating setback to recent humanitarian efforts – marking the return to “abject fear” in Gaza.

Mr. Fletcher reported that since 2 March, Israeli authorities had cut off all lifesaving supplies – food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas – into the Gaza Strip.

“Food is rotting and medicines are expiring,” he warned, adding “our repeated requests to collect aid sitting at Kerem Shalom crossing have been systematically rejected.”

Ceasefire gains reversed

Mr. Fletcher further warned that that modest humanitarian gains made during the 42-day ceasefire had been wiped out.

“During that period, over 4,000 trucks of aid per week entered Gaza. We reached two million people,” he said, noting also that 600,000 received polio vaccinations and maternity care for 5,000 births.

“The suspension of aid and commercial materials is reversing that progress that we achieved during that brief period. Essential survival resources needed are now being rationed,” he added.

Concerns grow over West Bank

The UN relief chief also highlighted worsening conditions in the West Bank, where 95 Palestinians, including 17 children, have been killed this year.

Israeli military operations have intensified, deploying tanks for the first time in two decades. Around 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced and settlers have launched large-scale attacks on villages.

“I also have grave concerns about the protection of civilians in the West Bank. The situation there is an urgent crisis that must be addressed with the necessary international attention,” Mr. Fletcher said.

Call  for urgent action

Mr. Fletcher concluded with a call for ambassadors to take three immediate steps: open Gaza’s border crossings to aid, renew the ceasefire and secure more funding for humanitarian operations.

“The suffering of the people of the region must end. A renewed ceasefire is the best way of protecting civilians – in Gaza, in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) and in Israel – releasing hostages and detainees and allowing aid and commercial supplies in,” he said.