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Gaza: Women and children starving, UN food agency chief pleads with Netanyahu

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National Heraldpublisher-detail-arrow
29th August, 2025 12:18 IST

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP) said on 27 August, Thursday that it was "very evident" during her visit to Gaza this week that there isn't enough food in Palestine. She added that she spoke with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the urgent need for more aid.

The world's leading authority on food crises said last week that the Gaza Strip's largest city is gripped by famine, and that it was likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Cindy McCain, the UN food agency executive director, told the Associated Press that starvation was underway in Gaza.

“I personally met mothers and children who were starving in Gaza," she said. "It is real and it is happening now.”

‘Skin stretched over protruding bones’: Doctors bear witness to Gaza starvation

Netanyahu, she said, was “obviously very concerned that people aren't getting enough food”.

In the past, he has denied that there is famine in Gaza and said the claims about starvation are a propaganda campaign launched by Hamas.

“We agreed that we must immediately redouble our efforts to get more humanitarian aid in. Access and security for our convoys is critical,” McCain said.

Pressure on Israel

The famine declaration has increased international pressure on Israel, which has been fighting Hamas since the militant group's 7 October 2023 attack. Israel now says it plans to seize Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, and there have been no public signs of progress on recent efforts for a ceasefire.

Israel rejects the declaration — issued by the authority on food crises known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC — and on 27 August, Wednesday, asked for a formal retraction.

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory, known as COGAT, said on 28 August, Thursday, that more than 300 humanitarian aid trucks enter Gaza every day, most of them carrying food.

But aid groups say it's not nearly enough after 22 months of fighting, the blockade of aid earlier this year and the collapse of food production in Gaza.

McCain spent most of 26 August, Tuesday, on a tour of Gaza speaking to displaced families living in tents and facing hunger.

“I got to meet a family who had come from the North, there were 11 of them, and they'd come from the North and they literally had not had enough food at all and they still don't have enough food," she said.

McCain said her programme is getting more food in to Gaza, but said a surge in food supplies was needed.

A present-day catastrophe

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said famine in Gaza is “a present-day catastrophe" and the start of expanded Israeli military operations present “a new and dangerous phase”.

He said it will have “devastating consequences" and force hundreds of thousands of traumatised and exhausted civilians to flee again.

“Gaza is piled with rubble, piled with bodies, and piled with examples of what may be serious violations of international law,” he said.

Mediators Egypt and Qatar were still waiting for Israel's response to a 60-day ceasefire proposal in Gaza, which has been accepted by Hamas, Qatari foreign minister said on 28 August, Thursday.

The proposal, which Egyptian and Qatari mediators delivered to Israel earlier this month, calls for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages and the handover of bodies of 18 dead ones, according to Arab mediators. It also calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to a buffer zone on Gaza.

Exchanges with Yemen's Houthi rebels

Also on Thursday, Israeli airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in response to attacks by the Arab country's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have launched missiles and drones toward Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea for over 22 months. The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians.

Yemen’s Houthi group claims missile strike on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport

Nearly 63,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. The agency reported that 71 people were killed by Israeli strikes over the past day, while scores more were injured. While the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, it says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the 7 October 2023 attack that triggered this latest war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 remaining in Gaza, Israel believes around 20 are alive.

UN chief Guterres has said that Israel, as the occupying power, has obligations to protect civilians, facilitate far greater humanitarian access and meet their essential needs.

The systematic dismantling of systems that provide food water and healthcare, Guterres said, “are the result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity”.

From the ‘human animals’ and ‘children of darkness’: Palestine’s appeal to Israel’s citizens Why the US can but won’t stop Israel

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