UN’s latest news and updates on Gaza

Translated by Alessandra Fumagalli 

After the last 18th March news, when the Israeli army stormed the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to look for Hamas forces, the UN humanitarian workers gave new data on the food insecurity. The United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a new report, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), stating that the famine in Gaza can occur at any time starting between today and May 2024. “Gaza Palestinian people are suffering from hunger and pain”, stated the United Nations General Secretary António Guterres during the Security Council in New York, describing the IPC report as a “terrible indictment on the ground for civilians”. “This is the highest number of people who are facing the catastrophic hunger that has never been recorded by the integrated food security classification system - everywhere and at any time”, he added. “This is a total disaster caused by humans - and the report clarifies that it can be stopped”, he warned, stating that this shows a clear need of an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

IPC analysis are carried out starting from field evaluation that human workers used to help the people most at risks. These data show that the “entire Gaza population” - about 2,3 million people - is suffering high level of acute food insecurity. Among them, 1,11 million suffer from catastrophic food insecurity - Phase 5 IPC. Compared to the last IPC analysis, the acute food insecurity in the Gaza Strip has worsen, FAO noted, with 79% more Gaza inhabitants that can “go into catastrophic levels of hunger” between February and March, and 92% more between now and July. IPC report shows that in Gaza most of the families skip the meal every day. Adults reduce their meal to allow their children to eat. “In the northern districts, in around two-thirds of families, people have spent days and nights without eating at least 10 times since the last 30 days”, FAO stated, adding that in the northern governments one child out of three under two years old is severely malnourished. Among the Israeli bombings on Gaza, FAO monitored that the hostilities have blocked water, food and fuel supplies. Each sectors linked to food have dropped, showed FAO, as well as plant, farming, fishing and aquaculture production. Around 60-70% of livestock of dairy and meal animals have been killed or prematurely put down, in order to face the terrible food demand resulting from the conflict. In order to help Gaza, FAO took action to provide essential agriculture supplies in the Strip, as long as the conditions allow it. The Organization stated that its first priority is to transfer animal food, among which 1,500 tons of barley, through the one or two lasting border crossings where the distribution of food is occurring. This supply of barley “should be s sufficient to provide milk to all children under 10 years”, affirmed FAO, underlining that it should provide around 20% recommended calories for children.

According to Gaza health authority, 31,726 people died and 73,792 are injured since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) warned that malnutrition, potentially lethal, is rapidly spreading and is reaching unprecedented levels, “due to the big impact of the war and of the growing restrictions on aids supplier”. Malnutrition among children is rapidly spreading and is reaching severe and unprecedented levels. At least 23 children in the Northern Gaza Strip died due to malnutrition and dishydratation in the last weeks, increasing the number of killed children during the present war, around 13,450 according to what the Health Ministry of Palestina reports. Young people are less capable of facing hunger and illnesses, UNICEF warned, with a million of young people already uprooted from their homes due to war and around 17,000 unaccompanied or separated children - 1% of 1,7 million displaced people in Gaza. Following these issues, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations, Martin Griffiths, stated during a humanitarian forum hold on Monday that the Organization and his agencies are suffering under a “war time, whose appeal to arms is the first option ... a time when United Nations are not allowed to work properly and then they are criticized because they are not doing enough. We see it in Gaza”. During that meeting in Brussels, Natalie Boucly, Acting Deputy Commissioner-General of UNRWA (United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency) focused on the fact that this agency is an help for humanitarian operations in Gaza. The agency is fundamental for the human assistance in the Strip, she said, working together with other agencies, like UNICEF -that vaccines 53,000 children in the seven UNRWA refuges, the WHO, the World Food Program (WFP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and other non-UN partners, from reception to storage, aid distribution, tracking, reporting, logistics, fuel, vehicles, and accommodation - and coordination with the Israeli authority.

The war in Gaza left around 23 million tons of ruins and undetonated arms around the enclave, declared the UN humanitarian aids. In a new alarm about the terrific humanitarian emergency happening in the enclave, UNRWA declared on Friday “several years are needed” before the Strip comes safe again. The UNWRA, the biggest aid agency in Gaza, still provide for life-saving supplies and services to more than 1,5 million displaced people in the South of the enclave. The agency manages refuges for more than a million people, giving them humanitarian aids and basic health assistance. The saving humanitarian work lasted during intense Israeli bombings and ground operations, as well as heavy fightings among Israeli forces and the Palestinian armed group. In its lasting emergency report, the Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) stated that violence is going on “mostly in the Gaza Strip, hostilities are causing further civil victims, displacements, and house and other civil infrastructures destructions”. The news had come when Australia became the last country to announce its willingness to finance UNRWA, whose international aids decreased, due to Israeli accuses stating that some agency personnel had taken part into the terroristic attacks on 7th October in Israeli, led by Hamas. An high level investigation still inquires into the accuses, that are integrated also by UNRWA.

Meanwhile, efforts to ensure a new route of sea aids from Cyprus to Gaza continued on Friday, when NGO Open Arms reached the Gaza’s coast. Open Arms ship is full of food and water and a crew ready to help the most vulnerable people in Gaza. The ship, that on Friday has been located near Gaza City’s coast, in the North of the enclave, set sails on Tuesday by Larnaca, in the South of Cyprus, with 200 tons of aiding stuff. These are going to be carried on ground when a jetty will be built in the South of Gaza City. The initiative involves the World Central Kitchen, a UN partner, an Open Arms research and saving charity organization, together with the Israeli authorities and international partners.

The ongoing international efforts for a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages should have continued on Monday, with a delay in the arrival of Israeli negotiators in Qatar, according to what reported. The crucial point of the negotiations in Doha (Qatar), between Israel and Hamas, is a ceasefire for six weeks, with a following release of 42 hostages. However, meetings will be complex and long, and they will last at least two weeks, according to Israeli sources, due to the difficulties to communicate with Hamas’s leaders in Gaza, that is under attacks. Yahya Sinwar will be involved in the negotiations, that will be on an high level, since the Chief of the Israeli delegation is David Barnea, the leader of Mossad. Urgent transactions are ongoing, due to the alarm launched by FAO regarding the rapid worsening of the food situation in the Gaza Strip.

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