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 Every day, Gazan mother Niyaha al-Masri spends six exhausting hours or more queueing at a community kitchen in the hope of getting some food for her family. It has been a year since a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was supposed to allow food to flood into the ruined territory, yet widespread hunger persists there. Al-Masri has little choice. Without the kitchen run by humanitarian groups, she and her eight children would have “nothing at all”, the 35-year-old said. Each day she sets out early in the morning and returns in the afternoon, this time bringing four containers of rice, lentils and a little chicken, which the family throws itself at. Among them is her husband, wounded in both legs by an airstrike, meaning he “cannot go and fight with the others” to get food. This will be the only meal of the day for the family of 10, living in a tent in Khan Yunis. There was no breakfast and they will have no dinner. What little flour they have, al-Masri explained, has to be rationed. In August 2025, a United Nations-backed body, the IPC, declared a state of famine in Gaza, though Israel quickly denounced it as a lie. By December, the UN had lifted that declaration, saying that the ceasefire had allowed in enough supplies over the course of two months to ease conditions. COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry organisation responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, told AFP that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was stable. But Shaun Hughes, of the UN’s World Food Programme, was less sanguine.  The food security situation, he said, “is still extremely serious”.  The most recent figures, from July, show that “1.4mn out of the population of about 2.1mn people are acutely food insecure”, he said, with 200,000 of them “just one step below famine”.While some food is getting in, a lack of sufficient nutritional variety continues to pose a health threat. “Dietary diversity is a major food security issue in Gaza,” said Hughes.  “You cannot survive on dry goods and wheat flour and bread alone. Particularly children, particularly pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, they need the micronutrients that come with high protein foods, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits,” he explained.  Al-Masri said that her children, aged between three and 14, “dream of eating fruit” but the family doesn’t have the means to buy any.  She said one of her sons suffered from malnutrition during the 2025 famine, although “little by little, his condition is improving”.  Malnutrition isn’t only caused by a lack of food, but also essential nutrients. It weakens the immune system of children, making them vulnerable to illnesses and stunting their growth.“Repeated bouts of acute malnutrition amongst children is something that human beings just don’t recover from,” said Hughes.  Cognitive and physical impairments “continue into later life”, he added.At Khan Yunis’s Nasser hospital, the head of the malnutrition unit, Israa al-Najjar, told AFP she had “observed an increase in syndromes and conditions” linked to malnutrition that affect the immune system.  Medecins du Monde published a study that found 93% of pregnant or breastfeeding women had symptoms of anaemia, which is closely linked to malnutrition.Just 17% had a sufficiently varied diet to meet their nutritional needs, the group found.  All the while, al-Masri has kept visiting the community kitchen, despite asthma leaving her exhausted. Her children spend their days collecting “pieces of nylon, bits of cardboard and chunks of foam” to try and reinforce their tent, which is in a poor state.  She said it was “shameful” that her children had to do so.  “I swear to God, this isn’t normal.” 

New Delhi police forcibly moved activist Sonam Wangchuk to a hospital on Saturday over health concerns after a 20-day hunger strike in protest against India's examination system.Wangchuk, 59, has been fasting since June 28 to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged irregularities in examinations to study medicine. A few hundred students have also joined Wangchuk around his stage at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar protest site in recent weeks, with other protests also organised by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) online movement. "As per the orders of... high court and on expert medical advice due to deteriorating health condition of Sonam Wangchuk, he has been shifted to the hospital for essential medical care," a deputy commissioner of Delhi police said in a statement. "While complying with the orders... the protestors tried to create obstruction, in which slight commotion ensued," the statement said. A video from Jantar Mantar showed confusion among a few Wangchuk supporters as police, carrying white sheets, hurriedly moved Wangchuk from the stage. Wangchuk's wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, said in a post on X that she was with her husband at the Delhi hospital. "Nothing should be administered to him orally or intravenously without consent from me, his family, and his doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past 20 days," she said. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said after Wangchuk was moved the hospital that he would now start "an indefinite hunger strike". "The government has made a serious mistake," Dipke said at the Jantar Mantar site. A New Delhi court ordered government doctors on Thursday to monitor Wangchuk's health daily.The "life of any citizen is precious", it said after a petition filed by activist lawyer Rakesh Kumar Saini expressed concern for Wangchuk."Whatever medical intervention is needed to save Sonam Wangchuk's life should be done," the Delhi High Court ordered on Thursday.An engineer by training, Wangchuk is best known for pioneering water conservation projects in the Himalayas.A few hours before he was picked up by the police, Wangchuk said: "Smaller movements have brought down many governments in India... and here it is about education."Some 2.2 million aspiring medical students sat for a re-examination under tight security last month after the previous test was scrapped following a paper leak that triggered widespread outrage.The failure of the hugely competitive exam, along with a separate marking fiasco in high school tests, sparked an outcry and fuelled youth protests. Several members of opposition parties have supported Wangchuk and the student activists, while other protests on different issues are being planned at Jantar Mantar to coincide with the start of the monsoon session of India's parliament on Monday. Former opposition lawmaker Priyanka Chaturvedi said the CJP should not make Wangchuk a "sacrificial lamb for their political ambitions"."... we need you to live to fight another day," she said on X

El-Fasher taken by paramilitary force late last monthFood supplies had been cut off during long siegeUN-backed monitor first confirmed famine in Darfur last yearA global hunger monitor on Monday confirmed famine conditions in El-Fasher, the Sudanese city taken by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a lengthy siege, as well as Kadugli, another besieged city in Sudan's south. The finding is the first time the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has determined that the cities are in famine, though in December it had confirmed famine in camps for displaced people in El-Fasher, capital of North Darfur.A war that began two-and-a-half years ago between the RSF and the Sudanese army has caused severe hunger and malnutrition to spread across Sudan, as well as displacing millions of people and triggering waves of ethnically charged violence in Darfur. The IPC is the internationally recognised standard for measuring the severity of hunger crises, and its findings have provoked criticism from Sudan's government, which is backed by the army.The IPC's first determination of famine during the conflict was for the Zamzam displacement camp south of El-Fasher in August 2024. El-Fasher was subject to RSF assaults and besieged for about 18 months before it fell late last month, deepening a geographical split in Sudan. During the siege, residents said food supplies were cut off, forcing people to eat animal feed and sometimes animal hides. Places where people gathered for community kitchen meals were targeted by drone attacks, they told Reuters.As a result, all children arriving in the nearby town of Tawila after fleeing El-Fasher were malnourished, MSF project coordinator Sylvain Pennicaud told Reuters on Monday, while adults arrived emaciated. International Criminal Court prosecutors said on Monday they were collecting evidence of alleged mass killings and rapes after El-Fasher's fall. The head of the Red Cross said history was repeating itself in Darfur.Monday's IPC report, based on analysis for September 2025, said Tawila, as well as Mellit and Tawisha, two other destinations for people fleeing El-Fasher, were at risk of famine. The IPC said the overall number of Sudanese facing acute food insecurity declined by 6% to 21.2 million people - or 45% of the total population - due to gradual stabilisation and improved access in central Sudan, where the Sudanese army took control at the start of the year.However, the situation deteriorated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions as fighting concentrated there, depriving people of livelihoods, increasing prices, and driving displacement, IPC said. Global aid cuts and bureaucratic impediments hobbling the ability of the United Nations and other aid agencies to provide food and other services have increased the humanitarian challenge in Sudan.Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan state, has been under siege by the RSF-allied SPLM-N armed group, though hunger has been spreading there since the start of the war.The wider Kordofan region has increasingly become a focus of the war as it lies between RSF-dominated Darfur and the rest of the country, where the army holds sway. The IPC said the nearby city al-Dalanj could also be in famine, but a lack of data prevented a determination. On Monday, a Red Crescent official said three volunteers in a city in North Kordofan state that was taken over by the RSF, who were shown being beaten in a video clip, were later killed.The RSF has denied responsibility for alleged summary executions.

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher warned that the number of people facing catastrophic hunger in Gaza could exceed more than half a million this month, fearing the number could exceed to 640,000 by the end of the month. In a press conference, Fletcher stressed that the current famine is preventable and predictable. He noted the UN and its partners are capable of saving lives on a large scale in the Strip if they are allowed to do so, as they did during the ceasefire earlier this year. He explained that the plan to end the famine in Gaza is simple: "a ceasefire, hundreds of trucks a day, full access, safe routes, end the bureaucratic delays, restore power and water, and allow commercial traffic." None of that — none of that — is complicated." Fletcher said the crisis in Gaza is occurring amid "the rules of war being corroded day by day," adding, "We've heard Israeli ministers talking openly about flattening Gaza and forcing people out permanently, bombing food aid, and so on."

Doctors Michele Ghielmini, Brenno Balestra, Alessandra Guaita and Marco Franzi sit outside the Swiss Parliament building (Bundeshaus) at the start of their hunger strike over Gaza, calling on their government to apply targeted sanctions on Israel over its alleged violations of international law and to recognise a Palestinian state, in Bern, Switzerland.