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Gaza is facing famine, kids suffering from severe malnutrition: UNICEF official

Iran Press TV

Friday, 01 August 2025 7:35 PM

UNICEF's deputy executive director has sounded the alarm about the situation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, warning that it has crossed the threshold of famine.

"We now have two indicators that have exceeded the famine threshold," Ted Chaiban told a media conference on Friday after he returned from a trip to Gaza earlier this week.

Gaza is in the grip of a full-blown humanitarian emergency, with a significant portion of the population facing severe food insecurity and malnutrition, especially among children. "One in three people in Gaza are going days without food, and the malnutrition indicator has exceeded the famine threshold."

Due to international pressure on Tel Aviv to allow aid into Gaza, some truck deliveries and airdrops of food and supplies have occurred; however, these are considered far too short and insufficient to address the widespread need.

Chaiban said the dire situation in Gaza requires sending aid via any means and modality possible, through "every gate, every route, and every modality, but airdrops cannot replace the volume and scale that convoys by road can achieve."

He pointed out that there is a need to move back toward a volume of around 500 trucks a day through all routes, which includes both humanitarian and commercial aid.

The UNICEF official noted that the children's organization has prepared 1,500 trucks loaded with relief supplies waiting at the borders of Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey until the Israeli regime issues permission for them to enter Gaza.

Thirty-three UNICEF trucks have entered Gaza in the last couple of days, Chaiban said, adding, "This is still a fraction" of what is needed. "We need to flood the Strip [with aid] from all channels, all gates," he stressed.

"Gaza now faces a grave risk of famine. One in three people in Gaza are going days without food, and the malnutrition indicator has exceeded the famine threshold, with global acute malnutrition now at over 16.5 percent. Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition."

The UNICEF official condemned what is happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza, particularly the children, due to the Israeli regime's genocidal war and blockade of food, medicine, and supplies, describing it as "inhumane."

He concluded that what is urgently needed in Gaza at present is a permanent ceasefire and a political way forward.

Hamas called on intl. community to pressure Israel to stop 'genocide'

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas called on the international community to mount further pressure on Tel Aviv to stop the "aggression, genocide, and starvation war in Gaza."

"Our people in the Gaza Strip are still subjected to a comprehensive war of extermination, which uses starvation and famine as tools of war to break their steadfastness," it said in its statement on Friday.

"The continuation of the siege, the prevention of food and medicine, the closure of crossings, and the death of children and the sick from hunger is a crime against humanity that will not be subject to any statute of limitations," it added.

Hamas urged the "Arab and Islamic nations and the free people of the world to continue and escalate all forms of popular movement, and to demonstrate in front of the embassies of the 'Israeli' occupation, America, and its supporting countries, on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays of every week, and in all coming days until the aggression stops and the famine in Gaza ends."

"[W]e call for making Sunday, August 3rd, a national, Arab, Islamic, and international day for supporting Gaza, Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa, and the prisoners, and for a continuous movement until the war of genocide and starvation against our people in the Gaza Strip stops and until the occupation is driven out from all our land," Hamas said.

Since the Israeli regime's killing machine launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, more than 60,300 Palestinians have been killed, of whom nearly 19,000 have been children.