Gaza city: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) revealed that one in every five children in Gaza is suffering from malnutrition, with cases increasing daily. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated Thursday in a social media post, that the people of Gaza are neither dead nor alive; they are walking corpses.

According to Qatar News Agency, Lazzarini added that as child malnutrition worsens, coping mechanisms fail, access to food and care disappears, and famine begins to spread silently. He continued that most of the children our teams receive are emaciated and weak. They are at serious risk of dying unless they receive urgent treatment. Reports indicate that over 100 people have died of hunger, the overwhelming majority of whom are children.

He explained that the escalating crisis in Gaza affects everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn sector. He noted that UNRWA's frontline healthcare workers survive on a single small meal a day, adding they are increasingly fainting from hunger while on duty. He said, when caregivers cannot find enough food, the entire humanitarian system collapses.

Lazzarini stressed that parents are experiencing such extreme hunger that they are unable to care for their children. Those who reach UNRWA clinics do not have the energy, food, or means to follow medical advice. He concluded that families are no longer coping, they are collapsing, unable to survive. Their existence is under threat.

He called for unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian access to Gaza and its people, reminding that UNRWA has around 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt for permission to enter the Strip.