The head of UNRWA has sounded a grave warning, describing the siege and starvation in Gaza as part of a broader effort to sever Palestinians from their homeland. After more than 20 months of international paralysis, the Commissioner-General said the situation on the ground amounts to a systematic attempt to dismantle Palestinian identity through deprivation, displacement, and despair.

With Gaza’s borders choked by an unrelenting blockade and essential aid deliberately withheld, over two million people now face hunger in conditions he called “shameful”, a manufactured catastrophe under the gaze of a silent world. Despite mountains of food and medicine stuck just beyond reach, the flow of life-saving aid remains blocked.

At the same time, the Commissioner-General pointed to Israel’s aggressive settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, describing it as a fast-moving annexation drive designed to eliminate the prospect of Palestinian sovereignty altogether. Refugees across the region, he added, are being pushed further into the margins, politically abandoned and stripped of their basic rights.

“What we are witnessing today is not just a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “It is an organised crime, one designed to sever a people from their land, their history, and their future.”

In the face of such devastation, he urged the international community to move beyond statements and take decisive action to restore dignity and justice for the Palestinian people.