US charity preparing vessel with hopes it could leave for territory this weekend

The UN’s top aid official has renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza and outlined six priorities in the humanitarian response.

In a social media post via the account of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) on Friday, Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, wrote:

The hostilities in Gaza entered their sixth month. These six facts should keep us all awake at night:

1) More than half a million people are on the brink of famine. Children are dying of hunger.

1) A ceasefire and full adherence to the rules of war.

2) Additional entry points, supply routes and storage capacity in Gaza.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen due to travel to Cyprus as bloc works to try to establish corridor through island

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday that hunger and malnutrition were on the rise among children, breastfeeding women, and pregnant women in Gaza.

In a post on X, the UN’s health agency, said that the only paediatric hospital in northern Gaza was “overwhelmed with patients” and was facing “acute shortages of food, water, fuel, health workers, and medicines”. It added: “The need for access to humanitarian aid is dire.”

Malnutrition plays a major role in the number of children that come to us, and the number of deaths.

When a child is supposed to eat three meals a day and ends up eating one meal, that’s not enough; your body becomes deficient in carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, and defecient in fats that are necessary for the body. Then the body goes into a severe dehydration state.