9 April 2025
That’s the message
from the UN World Health Organization, WHO, which said on
Wednesday that mothers are going into labour amid dire
conditions, putting their health and their babies’ lives
at risk.
It is now five weeks since Israeli
authorities stopped all commercial and humanitarian relief
supplies from reaching Gaza.
Medicines and other
medical provisions “are rapidly running
out”, with blood units and other supplies for
maternal and child health at critically low levels, UN aid
teams report.
Unexploded weapons are also a
major threatacross Gaza and have added to the
hardships caused by the total ban on relief entering the
Strip, said Luke Irving, Chief of the Mine Action Programme
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT).
“People are scared” and focusing on
day-to-day survival, “how they stay fed, how they stay
watered – this is the reality in Gaza at the moment,” he
told UN News.
Guterres
appeal
At UN headquarters in New York on
Tuesday, UN chief António Guterres issued
a strong appeal for guaranteed aid access to the
enclave.
He also repeated his call for a renewed
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and for the release of
all hostages still held inside Gaza.
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The
Secretary-General highlighted
how the truce between the warring parties had resulted
in the release of hostages and the distribution of
lifesaving aid.
Today however, “as aid has dried up,
the floodgates of horror have re-opened,” Mr. Guterres
insisted.
Malnutrition fears are
real
Latest
updates from UN agencies and partners issued confirmed
that no aid has entered Gaza since 2 March.
“Malnutrition, disease and other preventable
conditions are expected to surge, increasing the
risk of preventable child deaths,” UNICEF warned.
Mass
displacement has also returned to the enclave, with
a full two-thirds of the Gaza Strip now designated
as “no-go” zones by the Israeli military or
placed under displacement orders. At least 390,000 people
have been forced to move in the past three
weeks.
Escalating Israeli bombardment of Gaza between
3 and 8 April has killed 287 Palestinians and injured 912,
according to Gazan health authorities.
Between 7
October 2023 and 8 April 2025, the same authorities say that
at least 50,810 Palestinians have been killed and 115,688
Palestinians injured.
The UN humanitarian affairs
office (OCHA) meanwhile reported
that rockets were fired from Gaza on 3 and 6 April towards
Israel including one which struck the city of Ashkelon,
injuring at least 12 Israelis.
Aid workers
under attack
The number of aid workers killed
since October 2023 has now risen to 412. In recent weeks,
Israeli forces targeted and killed 14 staff on duty in Rafah
from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil
Defence and one from the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, prompting
widespread condemnation from UN
senior officials.
“It is a very, very,
very challenging time and evidence would show me that we’re
not protected at the moment,” said Luke Irving,
Chief of the Mine Action Programme in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Speaking to UN News, he
appealed for stronger protection measures for colleagues
trying to work in an active combat zone “because the
people need it, civilians need it.”
Relief
supplies run down
Aid partners continue to
warn that the nutrition situation is growing more dire by
the day as stocks run low. Malnutrition screenings continue
across Gaza but “supply shortages and movement
restrictions – coupled with active hostilities and other
challenges – are hampering their operations”.
In
March, for instance, only 50,000 children were screened for
malnutrition, a decrease of more than a third, compared to
February.
Relief teams are also struggling to access
remaining stocks of ready-to-use complementary food in North
Gaza governorate, amid ongoing hostilities and displacement
orders. “In March, the distribution of these supplies was
half of February’s levels,” OCHA said.
Fresh
evacuation orders have pushed more families to Al Mawasi and
areas west of Gaza City.
“Shelters for displaced
people are overstretched: hygiene and sanitation conditions
are collapsing, with water lacking and reports of flea and
insect infestations,” OCHA
reported.
