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UN: ‘No Famine But Kids Still at Risk’

CrossFireArabia
August 26, 2026

Among tent cities pitched on the rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza, children are, by one measure, finally getting enough to eat. By another, however, many of them may never fully recover, according to a new study by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released on Monday.

Key points

Famine was reported in August 2025 following two years of the Hamas-Israel war that saw Israel severely restrict entry of food into the Occupied Palestinian Territory and launch attacks that destroyed 87 per cent of cropland
After the October 2025 ceasefire, Israel has allowed more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which in turn experienced increased food security
Further improvements were seen between 31 May and 15 June 2026, with only around one per cent of children now showing signs of acute malnutrition, or severe wasting, but long-term effects of acute hunger remain

Hunger damage may be permanent

According to the new UNICEF survey, 12.2 per cent – one in eight children – were chronically malnourished, or stunted, reflecting the cumulative toll of more than two years of war even as humanitarian aid had scaled up since the October 2025 ceasefire.

For the latter group, the damage may be permanent: stunting can affect a child’s brain development, learning ability and future health for the rest of their lives.

“Acute malnutrition can improve within weeks,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “The wider damage does not.”

Mass starvation averted

In August 2025, a UN-backed measure of food insecurity, IPC, confirmed famine in Gaza.

At the time, humanitarian access had been severely restricted since the war began in 2023, and 17,000 children were admitted for acute malnutrition treatment that month at hospitals in Gaza.

Since the October ceasefire, Israel eased restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid, which has helped prevent mass starvation. The same figure dropped to 3,000 by March 2026, but it hasn’t been enough to protect children’s long-term growth and development.

Low birth weight babies

Nearly one in 10 women of reproductive age were themselves malnourished, according to the survey. These mothers are at risk of having low birth weight babies and unwittingly passing on their nutrient deprivation to their children.

Additionally, the survey found that rates of breastfeeding remained high, but only between 20 and 30 per cent of toddlers ate a sufficiently diverse diet, according to multiple measures.

“Behind these numbers are children who are not getting the diverse, nutritious food they need to grow and stay healthy,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Monday.

Calls for sustained aid access

Children who become ill in Gaza often cannot access treatment, especially for diarrhoea, the survey found, and vaccination rates fall short of the crucial herd immunity threshold.

UNICEF’s survey measured nearly 1,335 children and interviewed more than 2,000 households, making it representative of the Gazan population living in accessible areas.

“We continue to call for sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, including for fuel, continued funding for nutrition, health, water and sanitation services and open commercial markets, so that children and families can get the food and essential services they need to prevent further deterioration,” Mr. Dujarric said.

Underlying conditions remain

UNICEF warned that the situation remains fragile as sustained humanitarian access is pivotal.

The findings illustrate what UN agencies have warned for years: humanitarian aid works in the short term to address crises, but any disruption to aid, new displacement or disease outbreak could push acute malnutrition rates back up very quickly.

Despite gains, the underlying drivers of long-term health, including poor diet diversity, sick mothers, recurring childhood illness, incomplete vaccination and deworming, remain.

“Children need safe water, health care, and diverse and nutritious food, not only enough calories to survive,” Mr. Beigbeder said.

A report released by UNICEF alongside the survey results recommended:

Keeping malnutrition treatment running in the near term
Shifting from crisis response toward prevention in the medium term
Rebuilding primary healthcare and food systems in the longer term

Learn more about UN efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territory here.

UN News

News

UNICEF: 300 Children Died in 300 Days in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
August 6, 2026

CROSSFIREARABIA – UNICEF stated that no less than 300 children were killed in the Gaza Strip during the past 300 days when a ceasefire was declared on 10 October, 2025. It warned of more victims amongst children being killed despite promises to stop attacks. “A ceasefire that leaves, on average, one dead child every day simply fails the children. Children have heard promises before. This time, the agreements must be translated into action,” said Edward Beigbeder, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Uncategorized

Pain of Gaza is a ‘Non-stop’ Israeli Stain

CrossFireArabia
July 29, 2026

By Ramzy Baroud

The words “killed”, “injured”, “maimed” and the like often lose a great part of their meaning when they are repeated so relentlessly.

Take, for example, a headline like: “13 Palestinians Killed in Gaza, Others Wounded.” Though many of us can still feel a deep sense of sadness over such a tragedy, the news itself becomes less shocking over time.

According to figures produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israel has killed and wounded a total of over 250,000 Palestinians since the start of the genocide in 2023.

The tally is updated daily because the killing never stops.

On July 23, six Palestinians were killed in Gaza. A day earlier, 13 were killed and the day before that, nine others were killed and so on.

It is this “and so on” that makes us lose our sense, over time, of what these tragedies actually entail. These are innocent people who are burned alive in their tents, bombed in their cars, or killed while attempting to enjoy a brief moment of respite from the scorching heat on the beach.

Among the nine killed on July 21, an entire family, including four young children, was wiped out in a single strike. As reports of Israel’s daily harvest of Palestinian lives in Gaza multiply, journalists too often neglect to humanize those killed.

A photo circulating on social media showed three of those children: A boy wearing a T-shirt that read “Santa Monica Beach”; his bespectacled sister in a pink shirt, proudly holding a certificate of achievement from her school; and their youngest sister, posing gently.

These three represent every single Palestinian child killed since the start of this genocide. According to UN and international estimates, over 21,000 children have been killed in Gaza, with tens of thousands more maimed or buried under the rubble.

Though the daily routine of killing makes the tragedy feel less shocking for those merely hearing the numbers, it becomes infinitely more tragic for those who must bear it directly. In Gaza, not a single family has been spared the loss of loved ones, making the grief compound day after day.

There are no words to describe the collective pain of Gaza.

What makes the tragedy even more unbearable is that the entire world knows what has transpired and continues to transpire in Gaza, yet fails to do anything about it. We keep track of the numbers, we point to Israel’s barbarity, we decry the failure of international institutions, and we shake our heads in despair.

Yet, the outcome remains unchanged: the death toll rises, and new statistics are generated daily to remind us of the magnitude of the crisis.

A July 23 joint report by the FAO, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme found that 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza face acute food insecurity.

The report also warned that more than 74,000 children under five are expected to require urgent treatment for acute malnutrition over the coming year.

This report was released on the same day that Gaza health authorities updated the official death toll to over 73,311 Palestinians. That number is already higher now, as more have been killed since.

On that same day, Thameen Al Kheetan of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that “no place in Gaza can be considered safe”.

That statement is true, of course, but it is also the most well-known fact in the world right now. No one is contesting it. And yet, no one acts: Israel keeps bombing, the US Congress continues assigning it more weapons, and the rest of the world tracks the death tally.

Meanwhile, Israel—which has seized control of even more territory in Gaza since the so-called ceasefire—is now constructing massive earth barriers stretching an estimated 23 kilometers across the Strip.

Though it was never fair to begin with, even the original Trump Gaza plan never mentioned the building of interior borders, the theft of additional land, or the concentration of displaced Palestinians into tiny enclaves within an already small piece of land.

Israel’s long-term plan is not only to maintain permanent military control over Gaza, as top Israeli officials have declared, but also to prolong its torment indefinitely.

Even as I write this article, news reports indicate that four more Palestinians have just been killed. It is unlikely the number will remain that low; the Israeli army rarely kills in small numbers.

But even these small numbers represent human beings whose grief cannot be measured in statistics, summed up in official statements, or reduced to clichéd headlines.

Nor do survivors cling to the empty promise of international law prevailing over US-backed impunity. History has made Palestinians cynical. For generations, through every massacre and land theft since the 1948 Nakba, waiting for justice has yielded nothing but hollow promises and rising body counts.

The only difference between the past and the present is that today, we all know, see, and hear exactly what is happening in Gaza and across Palestine.

The very least we can do is refuse to turn our backs or reduce the genocide before our eyes to numbers.

If we allow that to happen, we become culpable, too: Israel does the killing, using American arms, while we sit by, counting the dead and shaking our heads at the sad state of the world.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of eight books. His latest book, “Before the Flood”, was published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include “Our Vision for Liberation”, “My Father was a Freedom Fighter” and “The Last Earth”. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). He contributed this article to The Jordan Times

News

‘Sneeze and You Might Well Get Shot’ – UNICEF Man in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
June 20, 2026

After another deadly night of clashes in Lebanon, aid agencies issued a new alert for Gaza, where 265 Palestinian children have been killed since a ceasefire was announced in October 2025.

“During a period supposedly defined by restraint and protection, a child has been killed, on average, every single day for more than eight months,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder. “That is an absurd and devastating figure.”

Killed while playing

Briefing journalists in Geneva via video from Amman, the UNICEF aid veteran noted that the children “were not killed in a warzone” but rather in their homes, schools while playing football or fishing.

“They were shot, they were bombed, they were struck by quadcopters” operated by the Israeli military, Mr. Elder continued.

The child fatalities are included among the nearly 1,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and more than 3,100 injured since the ceasefire began, according to the enclave’s health authorities.

“You sneeze near the Orange Line and you may well get shot,” Mr. Elder maintained, referring to the “continual creeping” of Israel’s so-called “Yellow Line” and “Orange Line” boundaries of occupation.

‘Utter lack of accountability’

The uncertainty of these moving boundaries and “an utter lack of accountability” are the reason for such a high number of killings, with the Israeli forces responsible for “the vast, vast majority – 90 per cent plus”, the UNICEF spokesperson said.

The UN and partners have repeatedly warned that the conflict has had a catastrophic humanitarian impact since war erupted in October 2023, in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel.

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), no hospital is fully operational in Gaza, while UNICEF warns that water remains a daily uncertainty for 1.1 million children.

“I talk to mothers who have children screaming because they don’t have the clean water to wash [their skin]. Imagine a parent unable to fix that night after night,” Mr. Elder said. “The scale of human suffering in Gaza being inflicted upon Gaza and enabled by others on Palestinian children, it’s almost beyond comparison in our lifetime.”

Today, nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced in Gaza, many repeatedly, while more than 1.2 million have lost their homes.

In an update to the Security Council on Thursday, UN emergency relief chief Tom Fletcher reported that Israeli denial rates for aid missions into Gaza had dropped from 31 per cent before the ceasefire to 11 per cent today.

Nonetheless, Palestinians in Gaza remain “deprived of the basics that you would all demand for your own families: safety, shelter, clean water, healthcare, education”, he stressed.

Mr. Elder echoed that dire assessment, explaining that although some fuel is reaching generators still in working order, the Israeli authorities are not allowing spare parts into the enclave to fix broken machines, nor the oil needed to keep engines running smoothly.

“This is the environment my colleagues on the ground work in, keeping children breathing without a semblance of dignity,” he said.

Other major problems continue to go unresolved in Gaza caused by delays and denials of aid deliveries, not least the massive amount of solid waste still piling up, said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.

“We’ve all heard the stories about the rats, the insects, and so on and so forth, that this causes. So, there is an opportunity, there is a possibility to get rid of all that, but we are not getting the access to it,” he told journalists in Geneva.

More killing in Lebanon

The OCHA spokesperson also condemned the continuing flare-up in Lebanon overnight, with reports of at least 18 people killed in Israeli airstrikes in the south targeting Hezbollah fighters.

“We are seeing the same reports overnight, of course, with enormous concern, frankly…more fighting is not going to help anyone,” Mr. Laerke said, highlighting the high level of humanitarian needs across Lebanon and particularly in the south.

“It is infinitely easier and faster to hurt people and inflict damage than it is to restore people’s livelihoods, get them back to their homes, feed them and so on and so forth. There’s just one or two days of this kind of warfare that translate into months, sometimes years, of humanitarian operations on the ground.”

According to UNICEF, more than 770,000 children are experiencing heightened distress after repeated exposure to violence, loss and displacement. UN News

News

On ‘Average 12 Children Are Killed…Maimed Every Day,’ – UNICEF Chief in Lebanon

CrossFireArabia
June 18, 2026

“For more than three months, children in Lebanon have lived through experiences no child should ever endure. Many have fled their homes multiple times, witnessed violence first-hand, lost loved ones, and seen their schools, communities, and sense of safety shattered,” said UNICEF’s Country Representative in Lebanon Marcoluigi Corsi.

“After over 100 days of increased hostilities – since 2 March – 247 children have been killed and 992 injured, an average of 12 children killed or maimed every day. Behind these staggering figures are lives cut short or forever changed, and families facing profound loss, trauma, and uncertainty,” he added in a statement released Wednesday.

“The numbers alone cannot convey the full scale of the crisis. Beyond those killed and maimed, an entire generation of children has seen its childhood disrupted. Their sense of safety – one that every child needs to grow and thrive – remains profoundly undermined,” Corsi pointed out.

“With renewed hope for hostilities to halt, children need more than an end to violence – they require protection, sustained support to restore access to essential services, and to be offered a consistent pathway to recovery and a safer future,” he continued.

“Widespread destruction remains across large parts of the country, affecting homes, schools, and essential services – including water, sanitation and hygiene systems – further compounding already severe humanitarian needs,” the UNICEF country representative stressed.

“More than 770,000 children are experiencing heightened distress from repeated exposure to violence, loss and displacement. Many remain unable to return home because of ongoing fighting and the threat of unexploded ordnance,” Corsi continued.

“The scale of physical and psychological harm we are witnessing is unacceptable, and children continue to pay a terrible price for this conflict. Ending the violence is essential to restore access to education and other basic services and provide children with a pathway to recovery and a safer future. The true cost of this crisis will not only be measured in lives lost today, but in the opportunities missed tomorrow. Without sustained support, many children risk carrying the consequences of this war with them for years to come,” the UNICEF Chief in Beirut believes.

UNICEF reiterates its urgent call for a sustained cessation of hostilities. Children need to be protected from further harm and schools, hospitals, water systems and other civilian infrastructure urgently safeguarded. Humanitarian access must be ensured and international law must be respected.

“Most importantly, Lebanon’s children must be given the chance not only to survive this crisis, but to recover from it and reclaim the future that conflict has placed at risk,” Corsi concluded.