Gazans’ suffering goes on amid intensifying Israeli strikes
United Nations | 26 May 2025
After another deadly weekend of Israeli attacks in Gaza, aid teams stressed once again on Monday that the “trickle” of supplies being allowed into the war-torn enclave will not halt famine.
In occupied East Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli protesters illegally entered a compound of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
The development comes after the Israeli military coordination unit COGAT said on Saturday that 388 trucks had entered Gaza since last Monday – the first aid to arrive in well over two months of blockade that have caused hunger levels to spike.
Humanitarians have repeatedly warned that at least 500 to 600 trucks need to cross into Gaza every day to provide people with their daily needs – as they did before war erupted on 7 October 2023 after Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel.
Token assistance
“We are on the back of 11 weeks of nothing entering the Gaza Strip, no food, no medicines for 11 weeks, nothing apart from bombs,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“And so today, a week after life-saving aid was finally allowed into Gaza again, the scale of that aid is painfully inadequate,” he told UN News. “It looks like a token that appears more like cynical optics than any real attempt to tackle the soaring hunger crisis among children and civilians in Gaza.”
Today, Gazans remain at “critical risk of famine”, UN-backed food security experts warned earlier this month. In their latest update, they estimated that one in five people in Gaza – 500,000 – faces starvation.
Needs are ‘absolutely critical’
UN Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim Sarah Poole, who is currently in Gaza visiting displaced persons’ shelters, reported that many families have been displaced more than 12 times, with living conditions deteriorating rapidly.
“The needs are absolutely critical,” Ms. Poole told UN News, warning that the situation has been compounded by a lack of lifesaving supplies.
She said that humanitarians are working hard to overcome numerous challenges and bring aid to people, including food, water and healthcare.
Ms. Poole repeated the UN Secretary-General’s call for an immediate end to fighting, the release of hostages, humanitarian aid at scale and an end to the suffering endured by Gaza’s population for far too long.
Another school hit
Reports on Monday indicated meanwhile that Israel’s intensifying military operation in northern Gaza against alleged terrorists and their infrastructure had killed at least 50 people in air strikes.
One attack hit a school in Gaza City sheltering hundreds of people uprooted by more than 19 months of violence. Footage reportedly taken after the incident showed the silhouette of a child stumbling through a classroom set ablaze at Fahmi al-Jarjawi school.
Another air strike hit a home elsewhere in Gaza City killing four people, according to the health authorities.
UN-run shelters are now “overwhelmed with displaced people desperately seeking safety”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said in an update on Monday. It also underscored that the lack of food has added to people’s suffering.
“Many families are sheltering in abandoned, unfinished, or damaged buildings,” the agency explained. “Sanitation conditions are dire; in some cases, hundreds of people are having to share a single toilet. Others, including children and pregnant women, are sleeping in the open.”
Farming smashed
Across Gaza, less than five per cent of the Strip’s cropland remains available for cultivation, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).
Using high-definition imagery, the agencies’ findings emphasize just how much food production capacity has shrunk in Gaza because of the war, exacerbating the risk of famine.
As of April 2025, more than 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s total cropland area has been damaged (12,537 hectares out of 15,053) and 77.8 per cent is not accessible to farmers, leaving just 688 hectares (4.6 per cent) available for cultivation.
The situation is particularly critical in Rafah and in the northern governorates, where nearly all cropland is not accessible.
Settler protest
Following the protest at the UNRWA compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday, a spokesperson for the UN agency noted that one member of the Israeli Knesset had joined the settlers inside the gates. Monday is a national holiday in Israel, marking the moment following the Six-Day War in 1967 when the country’s troops occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The UNRWA facility – located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem – has been targeted in past arson attacks that set light to the perimeter fence.
At the end of January, UNRWA withdrew its staff from the compound under protest at the entry into force of an Israeli law banning the agency’s operations in occupied East Jerusalem.
The location retains its status as a UN facility that is protected under international law.
The original article appeared here.