(UN News)* — Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday [], UN aid agencies repeated urgent warnings of ongoing famine and a likely rise in preventable disease, linked to the dire living conditions in the war-shattered enclave.
“We are on a descent into a massive famine,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, “and we need massive amounts of food getting into the Strip and safely distribute it across the Gaza Strip”.
Behind locked doors, thousands of migrants are trapped in modern slavery across Southeast Asia. Illustration: AI generated by CoPilot
Accra, Ghana, 29 August 2025 – When 32-year-old Samuel* left his hometown in Ghana, he carried more than a suitcase. He carried the weight of his family.
After graduating with a diploma in computer science, Samuel earned a modest income at an insurance company in Accra. But as the sole breadwinner for a family of eight after his father’s death, it was not enough.
GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 25 August 2025 –“Where is the world watching what’s happening to us, and to our children? All families in the world have children,” said Inas, who lives in a displacement camp with her three children in Gaza city – where famine has been confirmed for the first time.
“Would they accept their children waking up hungry?”
(Washington, DC) –US military personnel could face legal liability for assisting Israeli forces who commit war crimes in Gaza, Human Rights Watch on 26 August 2025 said.
Direct participation by US forces in military operations in Gaza since October 2023, including by providing intelligence for Israeli strikes and conducting extensive coordination and planning, has made the United States a party to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups.
Cradling 18-month-old Mohamed in her arms, Hedaia remembers a once-healthy child when food was available – despite Mohamed’s muscular atrophy, a rare genetic weakness.
Today, the little boy is skeletal.
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Hedaia, holding 18-month-old Mohamed, who has a rare genetic disorder. She says he was a healthy little boy when there was enough food. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah “He needs milk, diapers and specific foods,” Hedaia said, as her son cried softly. “But we can’t afford them.” (For their safety, only the first names of Gazan interviewees are being used in this story.)
. Hedaia’s struggle to find food is reflected across Gaza, where 641,000 people will face catastrophic hunger by the end of September, according to figures released today (22 August).
27 Aug 2024 – The children of Gaza are being starved and killed.
Israel has killed 18,592 Palestinian children in the last two years and there are 39,000 children orphaned in Gaza. This forced starvation is an Israeli policy leading to famine.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Calls for genocide come from high Israeli politicians and generals {see genocidal statement 18 Aug 2025 via Prof Michael de Graff}.
This is not a natural disaster; it is mass murder and intentional starvation of Gazans by Israel.
The suffering is deep and painful. Please do something to stop such preventable suffering and death of little Palestinian children by Israeli military and politicians.
Please President Trump, cut off weapons and diplomatic support and save the Palestinians from ethnic cleansing and genocide, which are being witnessed by the whole world.
NEW YORK, Aug 26 2025 (IPS)** –– President Trump, you are the only leader who can stop Netanyahu from committing another genocide in Gaza. The whole world is watching. Do not allow yourself to become an accessory to the murder of thousands of innocent Palestinian women and children and the utter destruction of what’s left of Gaza.
People wait for food at a community kitchen in western Gaza City. Credit: UN News
As I am writing this column, the Israeli military is converging on Gaza to destroy what has been left after 22 months of relentless war that killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and leveled to the ground 80 percent of its infrastructure.
Eight years of displacement for Abu and the Rohingya people
Abu, 18, has spent nearly half his life in this refugee camp.
“Today I am eighteen. I grew up in this refugee camp, waiting for education, waiting for a future, waiting to return home with dignity and rights.”
Abu*, an 18-year-old boy, was only 10 when he and his family fled Myanmar in 2017. Eight years on, he reflects on his life as a refugee and his hopes and fears for the future.
It was a Thursday in August. After lunch, we were resting when suddenly we heard shouting around our house. Our peaceful village, Thingana, surrounded by green fields and trees, turned into chaos.
An armed group was ordering people to leave their homes. They threatened to set fire to the houses and kill anyone who stayed.
The data show “a proportion of civilian slaughter with few, if any, parallels in modern warfare.”
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Bodies of Palestinians, including children, killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting residential neighborhoods are brought to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for identification and funeral preparation on 21 Aug 2025.
(Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
An investigation published today [21 Aug 2025] belied Israeli government claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, as classified Israel Defense Forces intelligence data revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were, in fact, civilians.
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 26 August 2025 (UNICEF)* -– Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.
People living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.