UN News Today 04 August 2025 |

Gaza remains on brink of famine as UNRWA chief calls for hostage releases

In Gaza, UN aid teams continue to report that Gaza is on the brink of famine while  calling for a ceasefire to ensure that vital food assistance reaches vulnerable people.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, called on Monday for all hostages taken in Hamas-led terror attacks that triggered the war to be released.

His appeal came after Hamas militants released images showing an emaciated Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, apparently still being held in Gaza.

Meanwhile, one UNRWA worker named only as Manar described the impact of living with the daily threat of Israeli bombing while struggling to find food and water for her children:

“Food is never enough. Sometimes we cook with only rice, if we are lucky. Many nights we sleep hungry. Our children cry because they are starving. As a mother, this breaks my heart. Medicine are missing and we walk for hours in the heat to find supplies. There are no cars, no buses, no help. We are exhausted, physically and emotionally.”

Sudan war forces civilians to flee besieged El Fasher, Zamzan

To Sudan’s North Darfur region where the small town of Tawila has been overwhelmed by a massive influx of people fleeing extreme violence and starvation.

In recent months, at least 330,000 people have fled El Fasher town and ZamZam camp, because of ongoing fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary rebels, dating back more than two years.

Reporting from one camp for displaced communities, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that people lack basic services, such as shelter and drinking water.

The rainy season is also starting and cases of cholera are rising, warned OCHA’s Mohamed Elgoni.

“War has to stop for these people so they can return back to their homes and live in dignity,” he said.

Aid agencies have reported that nearly four in 10 young children now living in displacement sites are acutely malnourished, and more than one in 10 suffers from the even deadlier form of the condition.

To help Sudan’s most vulnerable people over the next three months, $120 million are needed urgently.

Plastic pollution talks get underway in Geneva

Efforts are getting underway in Geneva to finalize a global agreement to tackle the staggering and growing amount of plastic waste that’s polluting our rivers and oceans.

Ten days of talks are being led by the UN Environment Programme – or UNEP – after countries agreed back in 2022 to develop a legally binding deal to end plastic pollution on land and sea.

Supporters of a deal have compared it to the Paris Climate Accord in terms of its significance.

They have also pointed to the pressure allegedly being brought to bear against an agreement by so-called petrostates, whose fossil fuels provide the building blocks of plastics.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Shellen Saling from the Youth Plastics Action Network explained why an agreement on plastics is so important:

“Plastic affects everything from climate change to health to fertility to even birth defects; it affects physical disabilities, as well as invisible disabilities. People don’t realize how much it actually impacts, and you know every single day we are impacted by plastic and without production cuts, it could get significantly worse.”

Ms. Saling urged countries to adopt as ambitious a treaty as possible and said she hoped that they would agree to ban the transport of waste from developed countries to others which can barely handle their own toxic trash.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.