UNITED NATIONS, 27 August 2025 – Below is a statement from Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing to the UN Security Council on Wednesday 27 August.
“The Gaza Famine is here. An engineered famine. A predicted famine. A man-made famine. As we speak, children in Gaza are systematically being starved to death. This is a deliberate policy. This is starvation as a method of war in its starkest terms.
“Save the Children’s clinics in Gaza are overwhelmed by need; every bench packed with malnourished children and their mothers. Yet our clinics are almost silent now. Children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony.
“They lie there emaciated, quite literally wasting away. Their tiny bodies overcome by hunger and disease. The medical and specialised nutrition supplies they need all but used up. Without these, malnourished children will die.
“A few kilometres away stand ready a sea of supplies. Thousands upon thousands of truckloads of lifesaving items. All blocked. The Government of Israel could end this famine tonight if it chose to end its deliberate obstruction and let humanitarians do our job. Instead, there are reports of escalations in Israeli military activity in Gaza City, more attacks on hospitals, more killing.
“At our Child Friendly Spaces, children draw what we call ‘wishing clouds’ so that they can imagine a better future. In Gaza, children used to wish for school, or peace, or to see their friend again. Once the total siege began in March, children would increasingly tell us they wish for food, for bread. These past few weeks, more and more children have shared that they wish to be dead.
“One child wrote “I wish I was in in heaven where my mother is, in heaven there is love, there is food and water”.
“Children are being killed in Gaza – by bombs, bullets, and now starvation – an entire generation at risk of being wiped out. Every decision maker in every capital in the world – everyone in this room – has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop these atrocities
“Famine means there are no more breaking points and no more alarm bells. It is the worst-case scenario.
“We told you this was coming, loudly and clearly- it has been constructed by design for two years.
“Famine is a technical term – it is determined by an independent, globally respected body known as the IPC. When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die. Slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what a famine is. By measuring a child’s weight relative to their height, and their upper arm to assess the amount of body fat and muscle they have left, we can objectively measure in real time the slow descent into the horror of starvation. The lives of at least 132,000 children under the age of five in Gaza are now at risk from acute malnutrition. This number has doubled since May 2025. Every other indicator confirms the IPC’s assessment.
“In the first two weeks of August, well over half of pregnant women and new mothers screened at Save the Children’s clinics were malnourished – seven times higher than before the siege began in March.
“We have since run out of the supplement designed to prevent pregnant women and new mothers becoming malnourished. This is the predictable result of a policy of a sustained siege on food, medicine and fuel.
“This month over 100 aid organizations called for an end to the weaponisation of aid in Gaza. These NGOs have worked in the occupied Palestinian territory for decades and are trusted and experienced. Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods to Gaza, and have tied continued operations to new registration rules. These registration rules require impartial humanitarian actors to take actions that are unlawful, unsafe, and incompatible with humanitarian principles. The result is a further obstruction to unhindered, principled humanitarian access.
“Children in Gaza do not need so-called creative solutions. Not air drops that deliver almost no aid while occasionally killing civilians. Nor creating inhumane, militarized distribution systems where hundreds of civilians have been killed seeking food, forcing those who survive to choose between being maimed and humiliated collecting scraps of food, or watching their loved ones waste away before their eyes. Families we support increasingly refer to these distribution points as “the jaws of death”.
“Instead, children in Gaza need Member States to take action. The endless violence, cruel and illegal siege, block on the UN-led humanitarian system, mass killing of humanitarian workers, ban on UNRWA, and obstruction and threats of deregistration against NGOs are driving the humanitarian catastrophe which in turn is causing famine.
“Independent entities mandated to conclude and determine whether atrocity crimes and war crimes are taking place have done so. In addition, grave violations against children are being committed at an unprecedented rate across the occupied Palestinian territory according to the Secretary-General’s annual reports. The overwhelming majority were perpetrated against Palestinian children, though there are violations against Israeli children also, including children taken hostage. Every child has a right to survival, safety, and a future. Any violation is a breach too far.
“Violence in the West Bank has been escalating at an alarming rate. Children face home demolitions, displacement, harassment and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers, including on the way to and during school. The mental health toll this has on their still-forming minds is devastating. Save the Children is particularly alarmed by the detention of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system, which is a long-standing child rights crisis.
“No child should ever come in contact with a military court, yet Palestinian children are the only ones in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts. These courts do not meet international juvenile justice standards. It is an abusive, inhumane system, where children consistently report being physically, emotionally and sexually abused, humiliated and starved. Children held in this system must be released immediately to prevent further harm and protect them from practices that could amount to torture. The military detention of Palestinian children must end. There must be accountability for all crimes committed against children, against civilians, and hostages.
“Children in Gaza urgently require the following: An immediate and definitive ceasefire, and the release of all children deprived of their liberty including hostages and children held in military detention. The Government of Israel must lift the siege and let the aid flow. The only way to achieve this is through unimpeded UN-led coordination. Member States must take action. Support accountability mechanisms, end arms transfers, refuse to fund militarised aid schemes. Do not risk complicity in atrocities.
“I would like to conclude by explaining briefly what malnourishment and starvation mean for a child. After one day without food, children begin to change – they suffer a loss of energy, concentration, and become upset. After several days without nourishment, their bodies start to degrade. Their bodies begin consuming their own fat to survive. They lose their appetite and become unable to focus.
“After two weeks, the process accelerates, and their small bodies rapidly deteriorate. Heart, liver and kidneys weaken, infections spread with ease as their immune system collapses. They become vulnerable to diarrhoea, pneumonia, sepsis. At this stage there is no fat left, so the body begins to literally consume itself, slowly, painfully eating the muscles and the other vital organs.
“Bellies swell and skin becomes fragile. At three weeks the process of starvation has reached its final catastrophic phase. Children get lesions on their eyes and go blind, hair falls out, organs shut down. Unable to move or speak or cry out, they draw their last breath. Those who do get urgent nutrition and medical support often grow up stunted. A stunted child will likely have impaired cognitive development, a weakened immune system and increased risk of chronic diseases.
“Babies born to malnourished mothers are likely to be forever smaller themselves. Many effects of famine cannot be reversed. The death and loss, the physical and mental harm, will last lifetimes and even generations. In the words of a nutrition nurse who works in our now silent clinics, “Hunger is written on the bodies of our children, a constant reminder that survival itself has become uncertain in Gaza.”
“For almost two years, the international community has failed to protect Palestinian children. Until you choose to act, this is the fate you are guaranteeing a generation of children in Gaza. Inaction is a choice. Indecision is complicity.
“Children have reached their breaking point. Where is yours?”
