ISTANBUL

The UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) on Thursday warned that Gaza is on the verge of total collapse, with widespread hunger pushing families and aid workers beyond the limits of survival.

“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive – they are walking corpses,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, citing a colleague in the enclave.

He revealed that one in every five children in Gaza City is now malnourished.

“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,” Lazzarini added.

He said the humanitarian system is “collapsing,” with frontline UNRWA health workers surviving on one small meal a day — often just lentils — and increasingly fainting from hunger while working.

“When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian response breaks down. Parents are too hungry to care for their children. Those who reach UNRWA clinics don’t have the energy, food, or means to follow medical advice,” the agency said.

UNRWA called for unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza, stressing that it has the equivalent of 6,000 loaded aid trucks currently blocked in Jordan and Egypt.

“Famine silently begins to unfold when coping mechanisms fail and access to food disappears,” the agency warned. “Allow humanitarian partners to bring in life-saving assistance without delay.”

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 113 Palestinians, most of them children, have died of starvation and malnutrition since October 2023.

Israel has killed more than 59,200 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, collapsed the health system, and led to severe food shortages.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.