How UN Reports Expose Women and Children’s Plight Amid Gaza Famine?
The United Nations has confirmed the presence of famine in Gaza for the first time in the region’s modern history, with its August 2025 reports documenting an escalating humanitarian catastrophe. Women and children have been identified as disproportionately affected by the ongoing deprivation, accounting for the majority of severe malnutrition cases and hunger-related deaths. UN agencies estimate that more than 500,000 people in Gaza Governorate are facing famine conditions, while the outlook for Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis worsens steadily with projections suggesting similar designations by September.
Nearly the entire population—over 2 million people—now suffers from acute food insecurity. Emergency nutrition specialists report that Gaza’s food supply has collapsed to levels below those observed in other global famine zones in recent decades. Health outcomes have deteriorated rapidly, particularly for children under five, who face critical risks of growth failure, cognitive impairments, and infection. The UN’s mid-August estimates indicate over 132,000 children under five are acutely malnourished, with 41,000 classified as severe cases. Infant deaths due to hunger-related complications are rising steadily, compounded by health system collapse and maternal starvation.
UN findings on the unique vulnerabilities of women and children
Pregnant and lactating women in Gaza are enduring extreme hardship, according to field data from UNICEF and the World Health Organization. An estimated 55,500 women require urgent nutritional support, with a significant proportion unable to sustain pregnancies due to advanced malnutrition. Reports from neonatal clinics—where they are still functioning—indicate that one in five babies is born severely underweight or prematurely, and one in seven requires emergency care for life-threatening birth complications directly linked to maternal health deterioration.
This compounding crisis highlights the cycle of famine’s most irreversible impacts. With many mothers too malnourished to breastfeed, alternative nutrition sources are scarce, forcing reliance on formula when clean water is not available, worsening infant outcomes. The result is an accelerating rate of infant mortality, with hospitals documenting cases of children dying within days of birth, their bodies too weak to survive without immediate, specialized care that is no longer reliably accessible.
Long-term harm to a generation
The physical and psychological toll of starvation on Gaza’s children extends far beyond immediate mortality. UN nutritionists and pediatric specialists have warned of lasting developmental deficits. Stunting—a condition reflecting chronic malnutrition—now affects an estimated 38% of Gaza’s children under five, and mental health crises are mounting. The schools of Gaza which doubled up as shelters are now overrun and teachers report a sharp drop in the cognitive engagement and physical stamina of students.
Unless immediate action is taken, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and partners have pointed out that Gaza would become a generation of children who would be permanently scarred by war and hunger, in health and access to education.
Restricted aid and famine as a “man-made” crisis
The UN has on numerous occasions declared that situations in Gaza are not caused by environmental failure or natural disaster. They are rather the result of a prolonged struggle, destruction of infrastructure, displacement, and humanitarianism limitations. More than 98 percent of agricultural land in Gaza has been destroyed or rendered inaccessible and entry points to the territory have been further restricted. Food, water and medical delivery is disgustingly inadequate even with incremental improvements in aid entry since the beginning of July.
Attempts by most UN aid convoys to reach the north of Gaza have been rejected, delayed, or robbed off route. Confirming reports provided by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicate that the daily food demand is only making its way into the region at less than 10% and clean water supply is dropping to less than three liters per person per day in the worst-hit regions which is way below the survival level.
Legal obligations and the charge of deliberate deprivation
The Gaza famine has been openly termed by senior UN officials as a man-made disaster. On 17 August, in a briefing note, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that refusing food, water and medicine in a war-torn region is a moral and legal deficiency, and urged Israel to live up to its humanitarian law obligations. Laura is obligated to uphold her responsibilities as the occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention that involves acting as a facilitator of relief.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has specifically warned that employing starvation as a war tactic amounts to a war crime, and that the continued deaths of civilians, specifically women and children, might in fact constitute a war crime as soon as it is determined that such deaths could have been prevented. These blockade circumstances and attacks on aid infrastructure have further subjected the international community to increased scrutiny, such as the establishment of a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Prospects for relief and the voices calling for urgent change
As famine in Gaza is officially declared, humanitarian organizations and UN agencies are increasing demands to act in a coordinated and mass response. Humanitarian corridors, reinstatement of the agricultural sector in Gaza and complete restoration of the medical supply chains are some of the urgent recommendations. Nevertheless, practicalizing these measures presupposes political agreements that are still difficult to achieve in the given situation.
This individual has contributed his/her voice to the subject matter and how the latest UN findings have brought the new generation to awareness of the deteriorating situation in Gaza. They bring out the specific weaknesses of women and children, calling on urgent international response and noting that the lack of acts only continues suffering that is not only visible but also preventable.
Ceasefire talks have not borne long term fruit in diplomatic talks. Even though Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey have proposed various options on several occasions, and UN-mediated efforts to expand aid access, combatants have not consented to measures to guarantee the delivery of aid or civilian safety. In the meantime, the civilian infrastructure in Gaza is becoming more and more collapsing. The vast majority of hospitals run at 30% or below capacity, most of which have no electricity or oxygen to serve critical care.
The UN records of the famine is a milestone in the Gaza war. It has raised a new moral and legal emergency within international discourse and has refocused international diplomacy, as it had previously been concerned with military escalation, on civilian survival. However, whether such recognition will lead to significant change in the future was not decided by the actors (state and non-state) who are going to exercise their capacity to place humanitarian concerns above strategic interests.
To a large extent, the Gaza crisis represents a dire observation of what anarchy can do to civilian people. It is not only a legal, but a historical test–one of strength–that here the international community must seek to do what it can decisively to prevent the extinction of a whole generation, or permit the spectacles of famine and torment to be strengthened openly before our eyes.
