“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive. They are walking corpses.”
This was the haunting message from a UNRWA staff on the ground this morning, " UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X.
In the heart of a war-ravaged enclave, the situation has spiraled into a catastrophic emergency.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), one in every five children in Gaza City is now malnourished, with the number growing by the day.
More than 100 people, most of them children have already died from hunger.
"UNRWA’s frontline health workers are now fainting on duty. They survive on a single, meager meal a day, often just lentils, if that. “When the caretakers collapse, so does the entire system,” Lazzarini said.
Children arriving at UNRWA clinics are skeletal, listless, and dangerously close to death. Without urgent nutritional treatment, they won’t survive, he said.
“This is not a crisis. It’s a collapse,” said the UNRWA official.
“Families are no longer coping ,they are breaking. Parents are too hungry to feed their children. They can’t even follow basic medical instructions. Their very existence is under threat.”
The agency said that it has 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt. But they remain stalled as Gaza continues its freefall into famine.
"Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted & uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza," he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently condemned the "accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions" in Gaza.
"The last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. The United Nations chief "deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition."
"The Secretary-General notes that the intensification of hostilities in recent days comes as the humanitarian system is being impeded, undermined and endangered," Dujarric said.
"A new evacuation order in parts of Deir el-Balah -- home to tens of thousands -- pushes people into more desperate conditions and further displacement and restricts the United Nations' ability to deliver life-saving aid."