Aid trucks have begun to arrive, as UN agencies prepare to dramatically scale up deliveries as part of the ceasefire deal which stipulates that 400 trucks will enter the strip daily.
This is set to increase to 600 – the minimum number estimated by the UN required to address the humanitarian crisis in the strip.
“There is little information available on the details or how the agreement will be implemented. However, we call for all crossings into Gaza to be open immediately so that humanitarian supplies can flow into the war-torn enclave,” said Juliette Touma, Director of Communications for the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA.
Her comments came as Israeli forces reportedly pulled back from parts of Gaza, in line with an agreement between Israel and Hamas, brokered in Egypt this week by US mediators and representatives from Qatar and Turkïye.
“This unthinkable is not looming – it is already here. The escalation is underway.
“The collapse of essential services is leaving the youngest and most vulnerable fighting for survival. Only 44 of the 92 UNICEF-supported outpatient nutrition treatment centers in Gaza City are still functioning, depleting thousands of malnourished children of more than half of the lifelines they depend on to fight famine.
“Malnutrition and famine are weakening children’s bodies as displacement strips them of shelter and care, and bombardments threaten their every move. This is what famine in a war zone looks like and it was everywhere I looked in Gaza City.
Children in Gaza are dying not just from hunger, but from the total collapse of the systems meant to protect them, UN agencies warned on Tuesday.
With 96 per cent of households lacking clean water, many malnourished children are not surviving long enough to receive hospital care.
James Elder, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told a media briefing in Geneva that it would be a mistake to assume that the situation was improving.
“There’s a sense through the world’s press that things are improving,” he said. “But unless there is sustained humanitarian aid…there will be horrific results.”
(August 6, 2025)
A ministry statement said that 138 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 771 people were injured, taking the number of injuries to 151,442 in the Israeli onslaught.
The ministry also said that five more people died from starvation and malnutrition over the past day, pushing the death toll since October 2023 to 193, including 96 children.
(August 4, 2025)
Gaza‘s children need food, water, medicine and protection. More than anything, they need a ceasefire, NOW.
NEW YORK, 16 July 2025 – „Excellencies, good afternoon. Thank you to Pakistan, as president of the Council, and to Member States for bringing us together this afternoon. Thank you for inviting UNICEF to share our firsthand perspective on this desperate situation for Gaza’s 1 million children.
„From the beginning of the present conflict, children – Palestinian and Israeli – have suffered terribly. Children have been killed, traumatized, and taken hostage. Children have been orphaned and injured. Children are hungry and lack clean water. Children are out of school, and the safety of their homes is a distant memory.
„Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them. And make no mistake, we have failed them.
„Over the past 21 months of war, more than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza. An average of 28 children have been killed each day – the equivalent of an entire classroom. Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children killed, every day for nearly two years.
„These children are not combatants. They are being killed and maimed as they line up for lifesaving food and medicine.
NEW YORK, 10 July 2025 – “We are appalled by the reported killing of 15 Palestinians, including nine children and four women, who were waiting in line for nutritional supplies for children in Deir al Balah, the Gaza Strip, this morning. An additional 30 people were reportedly injured, including 19 children.
“This assistance was being provided by Project Hope, a UNICEF partner organization, to families in desperate need. The killing of families trying to access life-saving aid is unconscionable.
“These were mothers seeking a lifeline for their children after months of hunger and desperation. Among them was Donia, whose 1-year-old boy, Mohammed, was killed. She said he spoke his first words to her just hours earlier. Donia now lies in a hospital bed, critically injured by the blast, clutching Mohammed’s tiny shoe. No parent should have to face such tragedy.
Vitiligo is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes patches of skin to lose pigment or colour.
“She was terrified and trembling. It was a severe panic attack,” her father, Khalil al-Sharif, told Middle East Eye from the makeshift tent where the family now lives in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
“We took her to hospital and she stayed there for a full day. She was shaking throughout the night, even after the bombing had stopped,” he recalled.
“Two days after we returned home, two white spots appeared on her face.”
Even before the current war, nine out of ten children in Gaza were already suffering from some form of conflict-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), largely the result of repeated Israeli military assaults.
In June 2024, UNICEF estimated that nearly all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children are in need of mental health and psychological support.
(May 16, 2025)
“The reported killing of at least 45 children in the Gaza Strip in the last two days is yet another devastating reminder that children in Gaza are suffering first and foremost, having to starve day after day only to be victims of indiscriminate attacks.
GENEVA, 18 October 2024 -“Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on earth for its one million children. And it’s getting worse, day-by-day, as we see the horrific impact of the daily airstrikes and military operations on Palestinian children.
“Let me try and share what that looks like, via one child: A seven-year-old little girl, Qamar. During an attack on Jabalia camp, Qamar was struck in the foot. The only hospital she could be taken to – a maternity hospital – was then under siege for 20 days, by which time the shrapnel in Qamar’s foot had led to infection. Because she couldn’t be moved, and because the hospital didn’t have the resources to cope with all the trauma cases, doctors had to amputate Qamar’s leg……
(two hours ago)
Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson, was in a convoy hit by Israeli gunfire as it tried to deliver aid to northern Gaza.
She said the vehicles were at a “holding point” – a designated area where cars have to wait until a checkpoint is ready to receive them.
“We were waiting there when gunfire broke out in the vicinity. The gunfire came from the direction of the checkpoint towards civilians who then ran away from the checkpoint and the gunfire hit us,” Ingram told Al Jazeera.
“We were really lucky,” she said, adding three rounds hit the car where she was sitting.
(03.04.2024)
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says the World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicles were targeted with a missile, through the roof, with Israel having the exact coordinates of the convoy as WCK coordinated their movement with Israeli forces.
(19.01.2024)
“Mothers face unimaginable challenges in accessing adequate medical care, nutrition and protection before, during and after giving birth,” said UNICEF Communications Specialist Tess Ingram.
“Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration. In Gaza, it‘s another child delivered into hell.”
Echoing deep concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed alarm that hepatitis A infections had been confirmed in Gaza.
Article 7
1. There are established as principal organs of the United Nations: a General Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council, a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice and a Secretariat.
(…)
Article 94
1. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice in any case to which it is a party.
2. If any party to a case fails to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgment rendered by the Court, the other party may have recourse to the Security Council, which may, if it deems necessary, make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment.
(…)
Article 96
– The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question.
– Other organs of the United Nations and specialized agencies, which may at any time be so authorized by the General Assembly, may also request advisory opinions of the Court on legal questions arising within the scope of their activities.
(19 November 2023)
The evacuation, which was requested by health workers and patients during the joint mission yesterday, became necessary as Al-Shifa Hospital is no longer able to function due to a lack of clean water, fuel, medical supplies, food, other essential items and the intense hostilities. WHO remains deeply concerned about the safety and health needs of patients and health workers who remain at Al-Shifa Hospital, and in the few partially functional hospitals in the north that face imminent closure.
Al-Shifa Hospital, previously the largest and most advanced referral hospital in Gaza, together with other hospitals, must be fully restored to provide urgently needed health services in Gaza
Signatories:
– Mr. Martin Griffiths, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
– Ms. Sofia Sprechmann Sineiro, Secretary General, CARE International
. Ms. Jane Backhurst, Chair of ICVA Board (Christian Aid)
– Mr. Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
– Ms. Anne Goddard, Chief Executive Officer and President a.i., InterAction
– Ms. Amy E. Pope, Director General, International Organization for Migration (IOM)
– Ms. Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer, Mercy Corps
– Mr. Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
– Ms. Janti Soeripto, President and Chief Executive Officer, Save the Children
– Ms. Paula Gaviria Betancur, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (SR on HR of IDPs)
– Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
– Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
– Mr. Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
– Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat)
– Ms. Catherine Russell, Executive Director, United Nations Children‘s Fund (UNICEF)
– Ms. Sima Bahous, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women
– Ms. Cindy McCain, Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP)
– Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)
Women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden of the escalation of hostilities in the occupied Palestinian territory, both as casualties and in reduced access to health services, warn the United Nations Children‘s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
As of 3 November, according to Ministry of Health data, 2326 women and 3760 children have been killed in the Gaza strip, representing 67% of all casualties, while thousands more have been injured.