Multiple Philippine institutions, including the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Palestinian Embassy in Manila, and the Philippine-Palestine Friendship Association (PFPA), have appealed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as famine conditions worsen for Palestinians.
In a statement on August 25, the DFA emphasized that Israel’s planned full military takeover of Gaza, restrictions on humanitarian aid, and attacks affecting civilians “aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation and further diminish prospects for a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.”
“The Philippines therefore strongly calls on Israel to heed the ceasefire proposal as a crucial step to protect civilians and revive the path to peace,” the DFA’s statement concluded.
It can be recalled that the Philippines, alongside 148 countries, voted in favor of an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent” ceasefire between Israel and Palestine in a United Nations (UN) General Assembly on June 12
Echoing the DFA’s sentiment, the Palestinian Embassy in Manila endorsed the appeal, praising it as a “firm and principled” move addressing Gaza’s man-made famine and systematic attacks on civilians.
“The current crisis is not merely a serious humanitarian issue but also a political one, rooted in decades of occupation and oppression,” Palestinian Ambassador to the Philippines Mounir Y.K. Anastas asserted in a statement on August 27.
“As such, we urge the international community to support concrete measures such as arms embargoes, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure to ensure compliance with international law,” he added.
In addition, the PFPA, in coordination with Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and other human rights advocate groups organized protests in the University of the Philippines – Diliman (UPD) campus on August 28, highlighting the escalating humanitarian crisis.
They called for aid in the widespread starvation and the targeting of civilian infrastructure while condemning Israel’s assault on Gaza as “a genocide enabled by global inaction.”
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) Famine Review Committee on Gaza published on August 22, over 500,000 Palestinians face catastrophic food insecurity and 313 starvation-related deaths, including 119 children as of writing.
IPC data further revealed all thresholds for a famine to be declared have been reached in Gaza: at least 1 in 5 households face an extreme shortage in their consumption of food; roughly 1 in 3 children or more are acutely malnourished; and at least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily because of outright starvation or the combination of malnutrition and disease.
Although Israel called for the IPC to retract its findings, deeming these “deeply flawed, unprofessional, and gravely missing the standards expected from an international body entrusted with such a serious responsibility,” all members of the UN Security Council barring the United States stood by the IPC’s report in a joint statement made on August 27.
According to an August 2025 report by research group Forensic Architecture, the Israeli military allegedly pushed for a “strategy of starvation” in Gaza through dismantling international civilian aid systems.
It further elaborated that with the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), military-run aid stations distributed limited rations across four sites in active war zones.
Only limited dry staples are provided by the aid stations — lacking water, shelter, sanitation, and medical care previously given by the 400 UN-backed ration-distribution sites.
Usage of live ammunition as crowd control in the GHF stations have also been reported, causing more than 2,000 deaths since May 2025.
Famine conditions have now spread to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis, with 640,000 people projected to face catastrophic hunger by September.
