29 August 2025
Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday, UN aid agencies repeated urgent warnings of ongoing famine and a likely rise in preventable disease, linked to the dire living conditions in the war-shattered enclave.
Although the private aid platform run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation continues to receive its own supplies, “we are on a descent into a massive famine”, insisted Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.
Referring to the latest catastrophic assessment of food insecurity in Gaza from the UN-backed IPC platform, Mr. Laerke noted that 500,000 people are in the worst possible situation today, with another 160,000 expected to be added to that number in the coming weeks. “They all need food,” he told journalists in Geneva. “The entire Gaza Strip needs food. There would not have been declared famine had there been sufficient amounts of food.”
In a related development, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the growing risk of communicable diseases in Gaza, with 94 suspected cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome now reported.
The disease can cause paralysis and is treatable in hospital with intravenous immunoglobulin or plasma exchange, according to WHO. “But these two [treatments] are at zero stock, as are anti-inflammatories,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, referencing ongoing Israeli aid restrictions impacting humanitarian relief supplies entering Gaza. “These deliveries must be urgently expedited as much as surveillance and testing capabilities.”
Between 20 and 26 August, out of 89 attempts to coordinate relief missions with Israeli authorities across Gaza, 53 were facilitated, 23 were initially approved but then impeded on the ground, seven were denied and six had to be withdrawn by the organizers, OCHA said in an update.
Read more about this topic:
- UN Palestinian Rights Committee Bureau Calls for Urgent Action to End Gaza Famine
- UN Secretary-General – on famine in Gaza
- Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza – Joint Press Release by FAO, UNICEF, WHO, and WFP
- UN Relief Chief says Gaza famine “must spur the world to urgent action”
- UNRWA Commissioner-General on Gaza: Famine is now confirmed in Gaza City
- WFP: As famine grips Gaza, families turn to desperate measures to survive
- UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory on famine in Gaza
- UN Human Rights Chief says Gaza Governorate famine is direct result of Israeli Government actions
- Gaza: Famine “irrefutably” confirmed, UN humanitarians unite in plea for aid access – OCHA, OHCHR, WFP and WHO
- Gaza Famine a Catastrophe for Mothers and Infants
Document Sources: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Health Organization (WHO)
Subject: Armed conflict, Assistance, Gaza Strip, Human rights and international humanitarian law, Humanitarian relief, Hunger
Publication Date: 29/08/2025
URL source: https://www.unognewsroom.org/story/en/2785/gaza-update-ocha-who-29-august-2025