UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini has Decried the deepening hunger crisis in Gaza, saying that UNRWA staff members are describing grave conditions and exhaustion in the besieged enclave.
Lazzarini described the situation in Gaza as “hell on earth,” adding that nowhere was safe.
The UN Palestinian Refugee Agency, UNRWA estimates that 1,000 starving people have been reported killed while seeking food aid since the end of May.
Lazzarini said in a statement, shared by his spokesperson at a press briefing in Geneva, “Caretakers, including UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now.”
“Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them, UNRWA staff are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties.”
Philippe Lazzarini
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2, 2025, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.
In a post on X on Monday, UNRWA said that shortages in the Palestinian territory had caused food prices to increase by 40 times, while the aid stockpiled in its warehouses outside Gaza could feed “the entire population for over three months.”
The UNRWA Chief also criticised a Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been supplying aid since late May, when Israel, which controls supplies into Gaza, lifted an 11-week blockade.
“The so called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Philippe Lazzarini
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies and largely bypasses a UN-led system, that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.
The UN said on 15 July it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the GHF and convoys run by other relief groups. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of GHF sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys.
Separately, the Head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Mohammed Abu Salmiya said that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the past three days “due to malnutrition and starvation.”
He told reporters that these deaths were recorded at hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza’s remaining functioning hospitals “every moment.” He added, “We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Rejects UNRWA Claims
The Israeli-backed logistics group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), responded to the claims made by the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) about the emergency messages it claimed to be receiving from its staff on the conditions in Gaza.
“UN has enough aid sitting in Gaza that they refuse to deliver and that could help end the desperation and help reduce or eliminate the violence around all aid distribution efforts if they would collaborate with us.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)
The GHF also claimed that the “deadliest attacks” on aid distribution in Gaza have been linked to UN convoys.
Jens Laerke, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters that claims that the UN has stopped working are “manifestly incorrect.”
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