GENEVA: Severely malnourished children in the Gaza Strip will be “certainly condemned to death” unless aid reaches them urgently, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, warned on Thursday.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said hunger was particularly acute in the north — where Gaza City is — where an estimated one million people remain.
Lazzarini said an evaluation on how famine has evolved in the Gaza Strip was due to be published soon, adding UNRWA health centres had seen a six-fold increase in the number of severely malnourished children since March.
“If no measures are taken immediately, they are certainly condemned to death,” he told the Geneva Press Club.
People in the Palestinian territory are already dying of hunger and “there will be more, there’s no doubt about it”, said Lazzarini.
Rights group Amnesty International earlier this week accused Israel of enacting a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza.
Without naming Israel, Lazzarini labelled it a “manufactured famine” and said food had been used “as a weapon of war”.
Israel heavily restricts aid coming into Gaza but has repeatedly rejected claims of deliberate starvation.
Israel has announced a plan to take over Gaza City and has warned that the north of the territory will be evacuated.
The UNRWA commissioner-general warned that a weakened, hungry population would struggle to withstand a new military operation in the city.
“We had described hell on Earth in Gaza,” he said.
“If this scenario were to unfold, even if we talk about the evacuation of people from Gaza to the south, many will no longer even have the strength to move.”
Hospitals ordered to prepare for evacuations
The Israeli military has said it informed medical personnel and aid groups in northern Gaza to start making evacuation plans ahead of a military offensive to seize the area.
Israeli military officials this week informed “medical officials and international organisations in the northern Gaza Strip … to prepare for the evacuation of the population to the southern Gaza Strip”, read the statement released by the military.
צה״ל החל בשיחות התראה ראשוניות לגורמי הרפואה והארגונים הבינלאומיים בצפון רצועת עזה
כחלק מהיערכות צה״ל להנעת אוכלוסייה מהעיר עזה דרומה לשם הגנתה, קציני מנהלת התיאום והקישור לעזה במתפ״ש ביצעו שלשום, שיחות התראה ראשוניות לגורמי הרפואה והארגונים הבינלאומיים בצפון רצועת עזה על מנת… pic.twitter.com/msrLwYdqus
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 21, 2025
The Gaza health ministry on Thursday rejected a call by the Israeli military to begin preparing evacuation plans for personnel in the north ahead of a military offensive to seize the area.
“The ministry of health expresses its rejection of any step that would undermine what remains of the health system after the systematic destruction carried out by the occupation authorities,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Such a step would deprive more than one million people of their right to medical treatment and expose the lives of residents, patients, and the wounded to imminent danger.”
Meanwhile, the Red Cross said that Israel’s expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip, aimed at conquering Gaza City, is “intolerable”.
“The intensification of hostilities in Gaza means more killing, more displacement, more destruction and more panic,” Christian Cardon, chief spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told AFP.
“Gaza is a closed space, from which nobody can escape… and where access to health care, food and safe water is dwindling,” said Cardon.
“Meanwhile, the security of humanitarians is getting worse by the hour,” the spokesman added.
“This is intolerable,” Cardon said.
