Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
12-12-2025
GENEVA/ JERUSALEM/ CAIRO: Thousands of children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza since an October ceasefire that was supposed to enable a major increase in humanitarian aid, the UN children’s agency said on Tuesday.
UNICEF, the biggest provider of malnutrition treatment in Gaza, said that 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October, when the first phase of an agreement to end the two-year Israel-Hamas war came into effect
While this is down from a peak of over 14,000 in August, the number is still significantly higher than during a brief February-March ceasefire and indicates that aid flows remain insufficient, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Gaza.
“It’s still a shockingly high number,” she said.
“The number of children admitted is five times higher than in February, so we need to see the numbers come down further.” Ingram described meeting underweight babies weighing less than 1 kilogram born in hospitals “their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive.”
UNICEF is able to import considerably more aid into the enclave than it was before the October 10 agreement but obstacles remain, she said, citing delays and denials of cargoes at crossings, route closures and ongoing security challenges.
“We have seen some improvement, but we continue to call for all of the available crossings into the Gaza Strip to be open,” she added. There are not enough commercial supplies entering Gaza, she added, saying that meat was still prohibitively expensive at around $20 a kilogram.
“Most families can’t access this and that’s why we’re still seeing high rates of malnutrition,” she said.
In August, a UN backed hunger monitor determined that famine conditions were affecting about half a million people or a quarter of Gaza’s population.
Earlier, thousands of displaced Palestinians trekked over the wastelands of Gaza to return to the ruins of their abandoned homes on Friday, after a ceasefire took effect and Israeli troops began pulling back under the first phase of an agreement to end the war.
A huge column of people fled on foot north along the coastal road overlooking sandy beaches towards Gaza City, the enclave’s biggest urban area, which had been under attack just days ago in one of Israel’s biggest offensives of the war.
“Thank God my house is still standing,” Ismail Zayda, 40, said in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City but “the place is destroyed, my neighbors’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”
In the south, people picked their way through the dusty moonscape that was once Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, which Israeli forces razed this year. Most walked in silence.
Moreover, Israel is set to reopen the Allenby Crossing with Jordan to the passage of goods and aid on Wednesday, an Israeli security official said on Tuesday.
The border crossing has been closed, opens new tab to aid and goods since September, when a driver bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel before being killed by security forces.
The security official said the crossing would have tightened screening for Jordanian drivers and truck cargo, and that a dedicated security force had been assigned to the crossing.
The Allenby Bridge is a key route for trade between Jordan and Israel and the only gateway for more than 3 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to reach Jordan and the wider world. (Int’l News Desk)
