OCHA: Hostilities in Gaza city and southern areas of the Strip take heavy toll on civilians

02 September 2025

OCHA warns that military activities continue in and around Gaza city, but also in southern areas of the Gaza Strip, taking a heavy toll on civilians – including deaths, injuries and further displacement.

People continue to flee, mainly towards the coast. Since 14 August, partners monitoring population movements have recorded more than 76,000 new displacements. Almost a third of these movements – over 23,000 – were from northern to southern Gaza, and most of the remaining displacement was within Gaza governorate. Individual people are counted multiple times if they were displaced more than once.

OCHA warns that coastal areas in Gaza city are already extremely crowded with tents, forcing some of those fleeing Gaza city to move north to coastal areas near Zikim, although these areas are under displacement orders.

Meanwhile, there continue to be daily reports of malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reports that the situation continues to deteriorate, noting that families without able-bodied members are those at the highest risk of severe malnutrition. For this reason, WFP resumed the distribution of digital vouchers last Tuesday, following a five-month pause, and has so far reached 22,500 people – prioritizing vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities and female-headed households.

The UN and its partners also continue to transport food and other supplies to and from the crossings, but the current conditions on the ground have not yet allowed them to resume community-based distributions. WFP says that violence among crowds and convoy attacks make organized distributions nearly impossible and put civilians and staff at risk. Adding to these difficulties are congestion at entry points and supply shortages.

They stress that only a ceasefire will ensure the necessary conditions for a massive response to prevent famine from spreading further. During the previous ceasefire, humanitarians reached nearly every single person across the Gaza Strip with life-saving aid – and they can do this again.

Meanwhile, OCHA reports that the movement of humanitarian teams inside Gaza remains heavily restricted. Between Friday and Monday, about one in three planned missions was either impeded or outright denied by Israeli authorities – that is 12 out of 37 movements that the UN coordinated with them. As a result, many missions could not be completed. For example, colleagues were stopped from retrieving nutrition supplies or from inspecting a dumpsite to expand solid waste operations and thereby curb the spread of disease.

Some missions went ahead but could only be partially accomplished. This included efforts to collect supplies from crossings, which involves navigating Israeli-controlled militarized areas, along with multiple approvals and long delays. Fully accomplished missions included collecting, moving or delivering medical supplies, as well as moving staff when no cargo was involved.

Restrictions also impact the pipeline before it reaches Gaza. Partners leading on logistics say that strict physical inspections by Israeli authorities continue to significantly delay aid clearance at Ashdod Port. Meanwhile, trucks entering from Egypt face a high number of returns, and the West Bank route remains restricted.

Meanwhile, like children around the world, young people in Gaza should be returning to the classroom – but the education system lies in ruins. The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said yesterday that instead of going back to school, about 660,000 girls and boys will be sifting through the rubble – desperate, hungry, traumatized and mostly bereaved. He stressed that a ceasefire is the only way forward.