Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday, United Nations aid agencies reiterated their urgent warnings about the ongoing famine and rising preventable diseases linked to the catastrophic living conditions in the war-torn enclave. Famine is currently occurring in the Gaza Governorate and is expected to spread to Deir al Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September.
"We are on a descent into a massive famine," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “and we need massive amounts of food getting into the Strip and safely distribute it across the Gaza Strip”.
Referring to the latest catastrophic assessment of food insecurity in Gaza from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform, Laerke noted that 500,000 people are currently experiencing the worst possible situation, and another 160,000 are expected to join them in the coming weeks.
“They all need food,” he told journalists in Geneva. “The entire Gaza Strip needs food. There would not have been declared famine had there been sufficient amounts of food.”
Malnourishment among aid workers threatens life-saving work
Also on Friday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned that malnourishment among humanitarian workers threatens their ability to perform life-saving work, following the IPC’s formal confirmation of famine in Gaza.
“Our staff and volunteers are not immune to the hunger facing Gaza right now. They are continuing to risk their own lives for others, while also suffering from hunger and desperately struggling to find food for their families,” the IFRC said in a statement.
“Many of our colleagues are malnourished and weak, surviving on just one meal a day. But even then, most choose to give that meal to their children. A lack of food kills more slowly, but just as surely as a bomb.”
The IFRC stressed that aid is neither reaching people safely nor at the required scale.
“Action much be taken, at scale, or more children, more families, more communities will starve,” the humanitarian network said.
“The declaration of famine is not merely a reflection of urgency — it is an unequivocal call to action. Every hour of delay means more lives lost. This catastrophe must be stopped from deepening further. This is a man-made disaster and a failure of humanity.”
Ongoing Israeli offensive could have even more horrific impact
Meanwhile, OCHA warned in a Friday update that the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza City could have an even more horrific impact on people across the territory if it intensifies.
The humanitarian aid office noted that Israel's announcement on Friday that daily tactical pauses in Gaza City have been discontinued — a city that Israel now classifies as a "dangerous combat zone" — will further threaten people's lives and impede the ability of aid workers to support them.
Aid workers on the ground have noted that the declared pauses appeared to signal a willingness to allow humanitarian work to move forward. Yet, in recent weeks, they have still observed bombing in areas and at times when such pauses had been declared.
OCHA stressed that life-saving aid operations must be enabled, not rolled back. Moreover, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to move south is a "recipe for disaster" and could amount to forcible transfer.
The UN and its partner aid agencies remain in Gaza City to provide life-saving support and are committed to serving people wherever they are. They emphasize that their work must be fully facilitated and remind parties that civilians, including humanitarian workers, must be protected at all times. Humanitarian facilities and other civilian infrastructure must also be safeguarded.
OCHA notes that aid workers continue to encounter obstacles to their movement within Gaza trip. These obstacles have hindered the collection of cargo from crossings and necessary road repairs.
Should the Israeli offensive on Gaza City proceed, the territory could lose half of its hospital bed capacity. Acute respiratory infections and acute watery diarrhea are currently the most commonly reported illnesses in the Gaza Strip.
In a related development, the World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted the growing risk of communicable diseases in Gaza, where 94 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome have been reported.
According to WHO, the disease can cause paralysis and is treatable in a hospital with intravenous immunoglobulin or plasma exchange.
“But these two [treatments] are at zero stock, as are anti-inflammatories,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier in Geneva, , referring to ongoing Israeli aid restrictions that are impacting the delivery of humanitarian relief supplies entering Gaza.
“These deliveries must be urgently expedited as much as surveillance and testing capabilities,” he said.
Humanitarian officials are calling for the removal of obstacles to the large-scale flow of humanitarian and commercial supplies into and throughout the Gaza Strip, including to the north and Gaza City.
UNRWA chief: "Every hour today counts."
Amid increased Israeli military activity in the enclave’s largest city, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), repeated his urgent call for a ceasefire in Gaza on Friday.
“Every hour today counts, the more we wait, the more people will die,” said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, who highlighted the many lethal dangers confronting Gazans today.
“Either they will die because of the military operation under bombardment, or they die because they could not be assisted in time and they are silently dying because of hunger,” he told UN News in Geneva.
“They’re even dying because they try to desperately seek for food going to these infamous distribution places of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” Lazzarini said in the interview, referring to the controversial non-UN aid hubs where supplies are distributed to those able to walk to them and carry away lifesaving relief.
According to the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), since May 27, 2025, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed "while seeking food," including more than 1,000 killed near Gaza "Humanitarian" Foundation (GHF) sites, and more than 850 Palestinians on supply truck routes. Most of these killings appear to have been committed by the Israeli military.
Gaza officials report an even higher number, saying that the number of casualties among people trying to access food supplies has increased to 2,158 fatalities and more than 15,843 injuries since May 27.
The GHF is an entity controlled by Israel and the United States. However, it is opposed by the United Nations, humanitarian organizations, human rights organizations, and the vast majority of countries worldwide.
The UNRWA chief echoed UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Thursday appeal for an immediate halt to the Israeli military escalation in Gaza City.
The violence “has to stop immediately”, Lazzarini said.
“People living in Gaza are now in a state of famine which has been declared about a week ago and now we are talking about a major military offensive, with a total evacuation of an extremely weakened population.”
Using starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare must never be allowed
On Thursday, Guterres said that Israel’s initial steps to take over Gaza City militarily signal a new and dangerous phase.
“Unbelievably, civilians are facing yet another deadly escalation,” he said. “Expanded military operations in Gaza City will have devastating consequences.”
The Secretary-General reiterated that starving the civilian population is never an acceptable method of warfare.
“Let’s be clear: The levels of death and destruction in Gaza are without parallel in recent times. Famine is no longer a looming possibility – it is a present-day catastrophe,” he said.
“People are dying from hunger. Families are being torn apart by displacement and despair. Pregnant women are facing unimaginable risks. And the systems that sustain life – food, water, healthcare – have been systematically dismantled. “
Guterres warned that hundreds of thousands of exhausted and traumatized civilians would be forced to flee again, plunging families into deeper peril.
Mass displacement continues in Gaza, where nowhere is safe
Repeated displacement has become commonplace. Across the Gaza Strip, hundreds of thousands of families continue to live in overcrowded, undignified, and unsafe conditions in displacement sites.
The problem is that nowhere is safe in Gaza, Lazzarini insisted, responding to reports of further bombing in the coastal shelter of Al Mawasi near Khan Younis.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced to Al Mawasi have little or no access to essential services and supplies, including food, water, electricity and tents.
Despite this dire situation, “there is no other place than Al Mawasi for the people there to go because the rest of the Gaza Strip are in a military zone with active fighting taking place,” he explained.
“But even Al Mawasi […] is not safe for the people because it can also be the targeting of a bombing. It's just unspeakable.”
Despite ongoing Israeli restrictions on the amount of aid reaching Gaza reported by UN aid Despite the ongoing Israeli restrictions on the amount of aid reaching Gaza, as reported by UN aid coordinators, the UNRWA chief asserted that the agency’s staff continues to provide lifesaving support to Gazans.
In addition to providing at least 15,000 medical consultations daily, the UN agency screens children for acute malnutrition, manages waste to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, and works to provide access to safe drinking water. Some 100,000 people still shelter in its schools.
“Where UNRWA cannot function for the time being is when it comes to food distribution, to the delivery of lifesaving items to the people, because we have been constrained and prevented to bring anything since the ceasefire broke down in March this year,” Lazzarini explained.
War crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide
According to leading international and Israeli human rights organizations, international rights experts, and UN commissions, Israel's actions in Gaza —including the blockade and obstruction of humanitarian aid — not only constitute flagrant war crimes and crimes against humanity but are also part of a genocide against Gaza's population.
These findings conclude that the Israeli government is deliberately inflicting living conditions intended to destroy a group or part of a group, as defined in the Genocide Convention. Meanwhile, Israel's war in Gaza continues to be characterized by grave war crimes and crimes against humanity that are perpetrated with impunity by Israeli military and government officials.
These crimes include using starvation as a method of warfare, denying humanitarian aid, collectively punishing civilians, carrying out indiscriminate attacks, targeting civilians, aid workers, and journalists, deliberately attacking civilian objects and undefended buildings, forcibly transferring people, torturing individuals, and forcibly disappearing people.
According to Gaza health officials, Israeli forces have killed over 63,000 Palestinians, most of whom were children, women, and elderly individuals, and injured more than 159,000 others in attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
However, the true death toll likely exceeds this number. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble, though a lack of equipment and ongoing insecurity are hindering rescue efforts. Additionally, it is estimated that thousands have died from indirect causes, including starvation, lack of medical care, dehydration, and lack of shelter.
At the same time, hunger-related deaths and casualties among people seeking food are reported daily, along with injuries and fatalities from Israeli strikes on schools, tents, and residential buildings.