‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses,’ says UN agency
- Last updated: July 24, 2025 | 22:04
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said that ‘people in Gaza are walking corpses' as mass starvation engulfed the territory due to Israel's blockade and ongoing military offensive.
More than 100 charity and human rights groups said that Israel's blockade is pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation.
Commissioner-General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini said a colleague in Gaza told me,
"People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
According to UNRWA latest findings, one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day.
Lazzarini said on X, “When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food & care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold.
“Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don’t get the treatment they urgently need.
“More than 100 people, the vast majority of them children, have reportedly died of hunger.
“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave.
“UNRWA frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all. They are increasingly fainting from hunger while at work.
When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing.
“Families are no longer coping, they are breaking down, unable to survive.
Their existence is threatened.
“Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
We, at UNRWA, have the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food & medical supplies in Jordan and Egypt."
The Israeli government's "restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death," the letter said.
WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that criticism, telling reporters that acute malnutrition centers in Gaza are full of patients and lack adequate supplies. He said rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10% and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20% are malnourished, often severely.
The UN health agency's representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza and that the WHO had reports that at least 21 children under 5 have died so far this year.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism in the open letter and accused the groups of "echoing Hamas' propaganda." It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 trucks are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the UN.