Merve Aydogan
January 12, 2026•Update: January 13, 2026
HAMILTON, Canada
The UN on Monday warned that child malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has reached alarming levels, with nearly 95,000 cases identified in 2025 and harsh winter conditions eroding fragile humanitarian gains.
Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference that "the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire, as harsh weather conditions are jeopardizing the progress made by the humanitarian response."
Dujarric reported that the agencies leading the nutrition response continue to detect large numbers of children in urgent need.
"Meanwhile, our humanitarian partners leading on addressing malnutrition report that last month they screened over 76,000 children and identified around 4,900 cases of acute malnutrition, including more than 820 cases of severe acute malnutrition," he said.
He further added that "this brings the total number of acute malnutrition cases identified in 2025 to nearly 95,000."
Noting that the UN partners provided supplies such as tents, tarpaulins and blankets to 28,000 families, Dujarric warned that "1.1 million people still urgently need help as rainstorms continue to damage and destroy many existing shelters."
"Our partners stress that tents remain a temporary solution and more supplies, including toolkits, cement and heavy machinery to clear debris, as well as sustained funding, are needed to transition from emergency to early recovery efforts," he added.
Highlighting the severity of the harsh weather on children, Dujarric said that "since the ceasefire and as of the year's end, our partners were able to distribute more than 310,000 children's winter clothing sets and more than 112,000 pairs of shoes as part of the winterization efforts."
"They also installed 150 specialized tents across Gaza to be used as child-friendly and safe spaces," he said.
Dujarric said that the UN's education partners on the ground opened up 18 additional temporary learning spaces for 35,000 Gazan students, adding: "The total number of operational temporary learning spaces is now 440, accommodating around 268,000 children."
However, he stressed that "education supplies continue to be denied entry by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that education is not a critical activity during the first phase of the ceasefire."
"We do believe that it is a critical activity," he affirmed, urging for "rapid, sustained and unimpeded access to allow ourselves and our partners to scale up assistance faster to prevent further deterioration and alleviate the suffering of people in Gaza."
When asked about Israel's continued destruction in the Gaza Strip, Dujarric said: "We want to see a stop to the destruction of whatever remains in Gaza."
"We want to see the parties move towards phase two to try to rebuild," he said.
A ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza on Oct. 10 under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, halting two years of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 71,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 since October 2023.
