A quote attributed to the Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which refutes previously published information about the famine in Gaza, circulated on social networks on October 12, 2025. We checked its accuracy.
“Philip Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA, has finally admitted: there was no famine or danger of famine in Gaza. There was enough food for everyone - with a supply for three months,” says the account’s post “Israel in Russian» on Facebook. The same post appeared in the Telegram channel “Israel in Russian"(9000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Both accounts belong to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. A similar post appeared in the journalist’s Telegram channel Alexandra Nevzorova (420,000). In addition, the quote attributed to Lazzarini was widely discussed on Facebook (1, 2, 3, 4).
On August 22, 2025, the UN, UNICEF and WHO issued a joint statement, according to which it was officially declared that Gaza was in a state of famine.
It is important to understand that ideas about hunger vary markedly in literature, everyday life, and the law. To avoid discrepancies, the UN, together with other international non-governmental organizations, developed the so-called complex classification stages of food security (IPC). According to this classification, famine is an extreme form of food deprivation in which starvation, death, poverty and critical levels of acute malnutrition are evident or probable.
In order for an area to be declared to be in a state of famine, three conditions must simultaneously be met: at least 20% of households in the area are affected by famine, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and at least two people out of every 10,000 die daily either directly due to hunger or due to diseases associated with famine. All these conditions in the case of Gaza, according to the IPC report, were complied with.
“Verified” studied the official resources and social networks of the UNRWA Commissioner General to find the quote used in the viral posts, but found nothing of the kind. However, we found a similar one fast, although different in meaning. It is dated October 9.
It states: “UNRWA has stocks of food, medicine and other essential goods ready to be sent to Gaza. This is enough to provide food for the entire population for the next three months.” That is, Lazzarini was not saying that there was enough food in Gaza for three months, but that UNRWA had enough food to provide for all the residents of Gazan for three months, but first this food had to be sent there.
This was also confirmed by an UNRWA representative when the organization contacted France 24 fact checkers: “The UNRWA commissioner-general spoke of the agency's stockpiles, which are now blocked outside Gaza and could fill thousands of trucks. He emphasized that UNRWA has food, medicine and other basic supplies ready to be sent to Gaza.” An UNRWA representative noted that they had previously been unable to deliver this cargo, and explained: “The Israeli authorities have prohibited UNRWA from bringing any aid, including food, into Gaza for more than seven months—since March 2, 2025.”
The earliest publications of Lazzarini’s distorted quote on social networks that “Verified” was able to find (both in Russian and in English language), appeared in the accounts of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. We reached out to the official representative of the department, Oren Marmorshtein, for comment. He forwarded the question to Orly Goldschmit, head of the social media department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. At the time of writing this analysis, no response had been received from her.
Thus, the quote attributed to Philippe Lazzarini that has gone viral on social networks is a distorted statement that originally had the opposite meaning. The Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees did not say that there was enough food for everyone in Gaza for three months, but that UNRWA, at the time of his statement, was ready to supply a three-month supply of food to Gaza as soon as possible.
Cover photo: unrwa.org
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