United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called on member states to urgently support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), warning that the conditions under which the agency operates are deteriorating by the day.
“The agency is working under increasingly severe pressure,” Guterres said, stressing that UNRWA has made “invaluable contributions to development, human rights, humanitarian action, peace, and security—including for Israel.”
He added that generations of Palestinian refugees have relied on UNRWA for education, healthcare, and essential services, but the agency is now facing unprecedented operational constraints.
Guterres’s appeal comes amid a deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where starvation deaths are mounting and civilian casualties continue to rise.
A Palestinian girl trembles in fear after being rescued from under the rubble following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/YPTHNjnpXy
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 25, 2025
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 100 people have died from starvation since October 2023, including over 40 deaths from malnutrition reported in August alone.
The World Food Programme (WFP) warns that one in three Gazans has gone days without food, and over 300,000 children are at risk of acute malnutrition.
The infant Eid Mahmoud Abu Jameh (2½ months old) is suffering from severe malnutrition and urgently needs treatment abroad, due to overcrowded cases and limited medical resources within local hospitals. pic.twitter.com/6zy8j5v575
— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) September 25, 2025
Al-Jazeera reports that only 1.5% of Gaza’s farmland remains accessible due to ongoing military operations and restrictions, leading to a near-total collapse of local food production.
UNRWA has thousands of trucks loaded with food, medicine, and hygiene supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt, but Israeli authorities have blocked their entry.
“Opening all crossings and flooding Gaza with assistance is the only way to avert further deepening of starvation,” UNRWA stated.
The UN Human Rights Office has described the situation as “a collapse of humanitarian law,” with entire neighborhoods flattened and medical infrastructure decimated.
Guterres also condemned the killing of six Palestinian journalists in Gaza, five of whom worked for Al-Jazeera, and called for an independent investigation. Since the genocide began, at least 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza, making it the deadliest conflict for media workers in modern history.
“The situation is beyond what you can imagine.”
Nada Abu Alrub, an Australian doctor who is one of the few remaining doctors at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, says they are facing “disastrous” conditions as Israeli ground forces are nearing the medical facility pic.twitter.com/Sn1wSJKG81
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 25, 2025
Guterres’s remarks were echoed at the UN General Assembly by representatives from Jordan, Brazil, and Spain, who described UNRWA’s role as “vital” and warned that its collapse would trigger a wider humanitarian breakdown across the region.
Israel has now killed at least 65,502 Palestinians and wounded 167,376, the majority of whom are civilians, including children and women, while thousands remain under rubble across the devastated Gaza Strip since October 2023.
