“Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on”, warned Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths in a statement, adding that “hope has never been more elusive” amidst deteriorating conditions.

“The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than two million people, even as its own staff are being killed and displaced, as communication blackouts continue, as roads are damaged and convoys are shot at, and as commercial supplies vital to survival are almost non-existent.”

‘Famine around the corner’

Three months on from the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair, he said, with a public health disaster unfolding before our eyes.

“Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos.  People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner”, he said.

But rocket attacks from militants are still raining down on Israel, while more than 120 people are still held hostage in Gaza, he added.

With tensions in the West Bank at boiling point, and “the spectre of further regional spillover of the war” looming, Mr. Griffiths said that the war must end, “not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbours, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.”

He concluded with a call for the international community to use all influence possible to end the fighting, meet civilians’ essential needs, and secure the release of all hostages.

COVID infections rising fast and under-reported, warns WHO

The UN health agency WHO confirmed on Friday that coronavirus numbers are spiking globally and that we “should expect more cases” in the coming winter months in the northern hemisphere.

Latest data from the World Health Organization covering the four weeks to 17 December indicated a 52 per cent increase in infections compared with the previous 28-days.

That amounts to 850,000 new COVID-19 cases reported, but the true figure is likely much higher, according to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier:

“You know that all throughout the world and you’ve seen it in many of your own countries, the reporting has dropped, the surveillance centers have dropped, the vaccination centers have dropped, have been dismantled as well or shut down”, he told reporters in Geneva.

“This, of course, leads to an incomplete picture and we should expect unfortunately more cases than we have officially reported.”

Most infections have been caused by a new COVID strain called JN.1 which is now under close scrutiny by the UN health agency as a “variant of interest”. JN.1 was reportedly first detected in the United States before spreading across dozens of countries.

It evolved from the Omicron variant which was linked to a peak in COVID infections in 2022.

Food price inflation fears ease again: FAO

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Friday that the Food Price Index ended the year just over 10 per cent below its December 2022 level, further easing concerns over food price inflation worldwide.

The monthly figure for a basket of traded food commodities was also down around 1.5 per cent for December, averaging 118.5 points, compared with the previous month.

The sharpest drop came in international sugar quotations, which were some 16.6 per cent down for December on the previous month. 

For 2023, the index was 13.7 percent lower overall than the average value for 2022, with only the international sugar price index higher over the year.

FAO said the sugar price drop was mainly due to the strong pace of production in Brazil along with reduced use of sugarcane for ethanol production in India.

The cereal price index rose 1.5 per cent in December, with wheat, maize, rice and parley all rising due to shipment limitations experienced by exporters. Cereal prices for the year however we more than 15 per cent below the 2022 average.

In central Gaza, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Sunday that medics at the only functioning hospital in Deir al Balah governorate “had been forced to cease lifesaving and other critical activities…and leave” after an evacuation order issued amid “increasing” Israeli military activity.

Only five doctors reportedly remain at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Middle Area of Gaza, where a WHO team delivered medical supplies to support 4,500 dialysis patients for three months and 500 patients requiring trauma care.

Patients treated on the floor

From Al-Aqsa, WHO Health Emergency Officer Sean Casey posted a video on X social media platform on Sunday evening showing chaotic scenes as medics treated patients on the blood-streaked floor, some of the “hundreds” being brought in for urgent treatment.

“They are seeing in some cases hundreds of casualties every day in a small emergency department,” Mr. Casey said. “So, they’re treating children on the floor.”

Echoing those concerns, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a post on X reported “immense needs” at the hospital, “especially health workers, medical supplies and beds. But staff said their greatest need was for their hospital, and its staff, patients and families there, to be protected from strikes and hostilities.”

More than 600 patients “and most health workers” had reportedly been forced to leave the facility, Tedros said, adding that it was “inconceivable” that the protection of health care could not be counted on.

According to the UN health agency, no hospitals are “fully functioning” in northern Gaza. Another WHO mission had to be cancelled to the north on Sunday, Tedros said, “due to dangers and lack of necessary permissions”. Elsewhere in Gaza, “a mere handful of health facilities operate”, the WHO chief said.

In recent days casualty numbers have “increased markedly”, Tedros continued, with “over 120 trauma cases and dozens of dead arriving per day due to increased shelling, gunshot wounds, crush injuries from collapsed buildings, and other war-related trauma”.

WHO is also involved in plans to deploy an emergency medical team to support medical teams at Al-Aqsa. “This will only be possible in a secure environment,” the UN health agency’s Director-General noted.

Targets struck in north

In a separate update on the emergency confirming “intense” Israeli strikes “across (central) Deir Al Balah governorate and the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah”, OCHA reported on Sunday evening that Israeli forces “struck targets in Gaza city, Jabaliya Camp, Tal Az Za’atar, and Beit Lahiya” causing “a very large number of fatalities” in the Al Fallouja area of Jabaliya Camp.

Rocket fire into Israel by Palestinian armed groups also continued, the UN aid office said, amid “ground operations and fighting…across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in additional fatalities”.

No end to rising toll

Latest data from the Gazan health ministry cited by the UN aid wing indicated at least 22,835 fatalities since Israeli military strikes began, in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on 7 October that left some 1,200 dead including at least 33 children and around 250 taken hostage. 

OCHA also noted reports of 225 Palestinian fatalities between Friday and Sunday and almost 300 injured, with 174 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza and more than 1,000 injured since ground operatio

ns began, according to the Israeli Defense Forces. 

Deadly disease threat

Amid ongoing deadly violence, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF estimated that there are now approximately 3,200 new cases of diarrhoea per day among under-fives. Before the escalation in hostilities, the average was 2,000 per month.

There is also dire concern for nine in 10 children under two years old who are now in “severe food poverty” and “only getting grains (including bread) or milk” to eat.

“Time is running out. Many children already face severe acute malnutrition in Gaza,” said UNICEF’s Executive-Director Catherine Russell. “As the threat of famine intensifies, hundreds of thousands more young children could soon be severely malnourished, with some at risk of death. We cannot allow that to happen.”

Updated information from OCHA on the number of aid trucks entering Gaza indicated that on 6 and 7 January, a total of 218 trucks carried food, medicine and other supplies through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings. Before the conflict erupted, more than 500 trucks carried aid into the Strip every day, some 60 per cent passing through Kerem Shalom.

Secretary-General António Guterres (right) meets with Sigrid Kaag, Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza.

UN Coordinator for Gaza

The new Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza officlally began her role on Monday. Sigrid Kaag will facilitate monitor and verify relief shipments coming in to the stricken enclave, in line with the Security Council resolution 2720 passed last month.

She has held a number of senior humanitarian jobs within the UN but most recently served as finance minister for the previous administration in the Netherlands.

Ms. Kaag will also have the challenging task of establishing a mechanism for accelerating aid into Gaza through States which are not party to the conflict. 

She was in New York meeting the UN Secretary-General on her first day in office but will be heading to Washington DC later in the week before travelling to the Middle East. 

“Even if there is no ceasefire, you would expect humanitarian corridors to operate… in a much more sustained way than what’s happening now,” said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “It’s too little. It’s too late and specifically in the north.”

Begging for food

Humanitarian assistance – and particularly food – is desperately needed across Gaza, particularly in northern areas, confirmed WHO Emergency Medical Teams Coordinator Sean Casey.

“The food situation in the north is absolutely horrific, there’s almost no food available,” he told journalists in Geneva via video from Rafah in southern Gaza. “Everybody we talk to begs for food and comes up and asks, ‘Where, where’s the food?’ People help us get our medical supplies through. But they are constantly telling us that we need to come back with food.”

Echoing that appeal and expressing concerns about intensifying hostilities in the south, Dr Peeperkorn explained that moving staff and supplies “safely and swiftly” had been compromised, “as deconfliction is required for any moves across Gaza, including the south – often leading to delays”.

In addition to getting more essential supplies into Gaza, what was also needed urgently was easier movement of humanitarian aid and workers within the enclave, “so that we can reach people wherever they are”, Dr Peeperkorn explained.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 23,084 people have been killed in the enclave, 70 per cent were women and children. Nearly 59,000 people have also been injured, which is approximately 2.7 per cent of Gaza’s population.

UN ‘completely ready’ to deliver

The WHO official insisted that the UN and its partners remained “completely ready” to deliver assistance to Gazans, who have endured a massive bombing campaign by the Israel military, in response to the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel beginning 7 October that killed some 1,200 people.

But hostilities and evacuation orders in Gaza’s central areas and further south in  Khan Younis have affected access to hospitals for patients and ambulances, Dr Peeperkorn explained, adding that it has also become “incredibly complex” for WHO to reach “ailing” facilities with medical supplies and fuel. 

Of concern are three hospitals located near evacuation zones – European Gaza Hospital, Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Aqsa – “a lifeline” in the south for about two million people, the WHO official said, speaking from Jerusalem. 

Healthworkers fleeing for their lives

“(The) constricted flow of supplies and access and evacuation of medical staff from many hospitals due to fears for safety are a recipe for disaster and will make more hospitals non-functional, as witnessed in the north. The international community must not allow this to happen,” Dr Peeperkorn said.

One indication of the “shrinking space” for lifesaving humanitarian work in the enclave is the fact that the UN health agency has not reached northern Gaza for two weeks. 

A total of six planned WHO humanitarian missions have had to be cancelled since 26 December, according to the UN health agency. “Our team is ready to deliver but we have not been able to receive the necessary permissions to proceed safely,” Dr Peeperkorn explained.

Safe passage requests denting aid response: UN Spokesperson

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Tuesday that so-called “denials of coordinated movement requests” were causing critical hold-ups in aid delivery across Gaza.

Addressing reporters at the regular noon briefing in New York, he said that since 1 January, “humanitarian partners have requested 20 convoys, of which 15 were denied and two were unable to proceed because of delays or routes that were impassable.”

Only three went to the hardest hit north of Gaza and that was with modifications to the plan that wound up impacting operations, he added .

Despite the major challenges to delivering humanitarian assistance, aid partners have provided healthcare and medical services to about half a million people since 7 October.

“But the needs are massive – and just over a third of more than 350 formal and informal shelters for internally displaced people in Gaza have access to any sort of medical points.”

He said “continued denial of fuel delivery to water and sanitation facilities is leaving tens of thousands of people without access to clean water and increasing the risk of sewage overflows, significantly heightening the risk of the spread of communicable diseases.”