'Drone followed Gaza colleague home and wiped out his family', says British doctor
Nada Al Hadithy also told Sky News presenter Matt Barbet. how one of her patients, a 21-year-old woman who was six months pregnant, lost her baby after she was "blown up in her tent".
"Her husband was killed, she lost her eye, she had an open fracture, and both her legs were completely destroyed from the bomb blast,"
"This woman is completely emaciated, with no vitamins, no food. And one day her baby stopped moving."
It comes after Donald Trump's Middle East envoy visited a food distribution site in Gaza.
Steve Witkoff and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in the southern city of Rafah on Friday.
The Israeli-backed American contractor's efforts to deliver food to the region have been mired in violence and controversy, with hundreds killed by Israeli fire while walking to such aid sites since May, according to eyewitnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office.
Israel's military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approached its forces, while GHF said its armed contractors have only fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 2:47 Trump envoy Witkoff visits Gaza
Ms Hadithy said the situation in Gaza is "absolutely desperate" and a school classroom's worth of children "are dying every single day".
She said there was "a tangible difference in the amount of starvation and the emaciation of our patients" during the three weeks she was in Gaza, adding: "Even the severity of and relentlessness of the bombings was worse.
"It was mass casualty after mass casualty, with people being blown up in their tents, which were meant to be in green zones. The situation was catastrophic."
She said one colleague - who she described as "patient, joyful and hardworking" - was followed home one day by a quadcopter drone, according to eyewitness testimony from fellow medical workers.
The drone "didn't kill him on the route where he was on his own, it waited until he was in his tent and greeted his three children and killed all of them", she added.
During her time in Gaza, Ms Hadithy said she saw "emaciated children", adding: "So now you've got two million starving people in [an area] the same size as Exeter, which in our country and in our census in 2021 had 130,000 people in it.
"That's two million people with no water, no sanitation, no food, no medical supplies."
Ms Hadithy also said Gazan health workers themselves are starving. "Never before have I seen such dignified, committed people," she added.
Read more:
Sky News unveils pattern of deadly Israeli attacks on families
Explainer: What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?
In a post on X, Mr Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza to gain "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza".
He did not request any meetings with UN officials in Gaza during the visit, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 1:00 Aid dropped into Gaza
The war began when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has been approached for a comment.
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Economist
6 minutes ago
- Economist
The long-term effects of hunger in Gaza
FOR two weeks, the world has claimed it is working to end the widespread hunger in Gaza. The UN is pleading with Israel to allow more lorries of aid into the territory. Arab and Western states are airdropping food. On August 5th Donald Trump said America would take a larger role in distributing aid, though he was vague about the details. 'I know Israel is going to help us with that in terms of distribution, and also money,' he said. Yet on the ground, Gazans say little has changed. There is not enough food entering Gaza, nor is there law and order to allow its distribution. Airdrops are hard to reach. Convoys are looted soon after they cross the border. Finding food often requires making a risky trip to an aid centre, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent months, or paying exorbitant sums on the black market. This is a calamity in its own right, one that will have long-term consequences for many Gazans, particularly children. But it is also a glimpse of Gaza's future. Even after the war ends, it will remain at the mercy of others for years to come. Wedged between Israel and Egypt, the tiny territory was never self-sufficient. Its neighbours imposed an embargo after Hamas, a militant group, took power in 2007. The economy withered. Half of the workforce in the strip was unemployed and more than 60% of the population relied on some form of foreign aid to survive. The UN doled out cash assistance, ran a network of clinics that offered 3.5m consultations a year and operated schools that educated some 300,000 children. Still, Gaza could meet at least some basic needs by itself. Two-fifths of its territory was farmland that supplied enough dairy, poultry, eggs and fruits and vegetables to meet most local demand. Small factories produced everything from packaged food to furniture. The Hamas-run government was inept, but it provided law and order. After nearly two years of war, almost none of that remains. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says that Gaza's 2m people need 62,000 tonnes of food a month. That is a bare-bones calculation: it would provide enough staple foods but no meat, fruits and vegetables or other perishables. By its own tally, Israel has allowed far less in. It imposed a total siege on the territory from March 2nd until May 19th, with no food permitted to enter. Then Israel allowed the UN to resume limited aid deliveries to northern Gaza. It also helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy outfit that distributes food at four points in southern and central Gaza. In more than two months of operation, it has handed out less than 0.7 meals per Gazan per day—and that assumes each box of aid, stocked with a hotch-potch of dried and canned goods, really provides as many meals as the GHF claims it does. All told, Israel permitted 98,674 tonnes of food aid to cross the border in the five months through July, an average of 19,734 tonnes a month—just 32% of what the WFP says is necessary. Although the volume of aid has increased in recent days, it is still insufficient. 'We're trying to get 80 to 100 trucks in, every single day,' says Valerie Guarnieri of the WFP. 'It's not a high bar, but a realistic bar of what we can achieve.' On August 4th, though, Israel allowed only 41 of the agency's lorries to enter a staging area on the Gaza border, and it let drivers collect just 29 of them. Getting into Gaza is only the first challenge. Distribution is a nightmare. Since May 19th the UN has collected 2,604 lorryloads of aid from Gaza's borders. Just 300 reached their intended destination. The rest were intercepted en route, either by desperate civilians or by armed men. Aid workers are nonchalant about civilians raiding aid lorries, which they euphemistically call 'self-distribution': they reckon the food still reaches people who need it. 'There's a real crescendo of desperation,' says Ms Guarnieri. 'People have no confidence food is going to come the next day.' But the roaring black market suggests that much of it is stolen. Gaza's chamber of commerce publishes a regular survey of food prices (see chart). A 25kg sack of flour, which cost 35 shekels ($10) before the war, went for 625 shekels on August 5th. A kilo of tomatoes fetched 100 shekels, 50 times its pre-war value. Such prices are far beyond the reach of most Gazans. Those with a bit of money often haggle for tiny quantities: a shopper might bring home a single potato for his family, for example. Israel's ostensible goal in throttling the supply of aid was to prevent Hamas from pilfering any of it. Earlier this month the group released a propaganda video of Evyatar David, an Israeli hostage still held in Gaza. He was emaciated, and spent much of the video recounting how little he had to eat: a few lentils or beans one day, nothing the next. At one point a militant handed Mr David a can of beans from behind the camera. Many viewers noted that the captor's hand looked rather chubby. As much of Gaza starves, Hamas, it seems, is still managing to feed its fighters. The consequences of Israel's policy instead fall hardest on children—sometimes even before birth. 'One in three pregnancies are now high-risk. One in five babies that we've seen are born premature or underweight,' says Leila Baker of the UN's family-planning agency. Compare that with before the war, when 8% of Gazan babies were born underweight (at less than 2.5kg). There were 222 stillbirths between January and June, a ten-fold increase from levels seen before the war. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed outfit that tracks hunger, said last month that 20,000 children were hospitalised for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. Even before they reach that point, their immune systems crumble. Moderately malnourished children catch infections far more easily than well-fed ones, and become more seriously ill when they do, rapidly losing body weight. The body takes a 'big hit' when food intake falls to just 70-80% of normal, says Marko Kerac, a paediatrician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has treated children in famine-stricken places. Most children in Gaza are eating a lot less than that. In July the World Health Organisation reported an outbreak of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease that may have links to hunger. Gaza's health ministry says cases are multiplying, including among children. Give us our daily bread Nor is calorie intake the only concern. Although flour and salt in Gaza are fortified with some vitamins and minerals, such as iodine, they are consumed in limited amounts—especially now, since many bakeries have been closed for months, owing to a lack of flour and fuel. In February, during the ceasefire, Israel allowed 15,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables and 11,000 tonnes of meat and fish into Gaza. Since March it has allowed just 136 tonnes of meat. All of this means there is widespread deficiency of essential nutrients that help children's brains develop. Every child in Gaza, in other words, will remain at lifelong risk of poor health because of today's malnutrition. There is consistent evidence for this from studies of populations that have lived through famine: during the second world war, the 1960s famine in China and, more recently, places like Ethiopia. Children who have suffered acute malnourishment have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases as adults. They are also at risk of worse cognitive development. A flood of aid cannot undo the damage, but it can prevent it from getting worse. It will have to be sustained. The devastation wrought by Israel's war has left Gazans with no alternative but to rely on aid. In February the UN estimated that the war had caused $30bn in physical damage and $19bn in economic disruption, including lost labour, forgone income and increased costs. Reconstruction would require $53bn. At this point, that is little more than a guess. The real cost is impossible to calculate. But it will be enormous. The first task will be simply clearing the rubble. A UN assessment in April, based on satellite imagery, estimated that there were 53m tonnes of rubble strewn across Gaza—30 times as much debris as was removed from Manhattan after the September 11th attacks. Clearing it could be the work of decades. The seven-week war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, the longest and deadliest before the current one, produced 2.5m tonnes of debris. It took two years to remove. Rebuilding a productive economy will be no less difficult. Take agriculture. The UN's agriculture agency says that 80% of Gaza's farmland and 84% of its greenhouses have been damaged in the war. Livestock have been all but wiped out. A satellite assessment last summer found that 68% of Gaza's roads had been damaged (that figure is no doubt higher today). The two main north-south roads—one along the coast, the other farther inland—are both impassable in places. Even if farmers can start planting crops for small harvests after the war, it will be hard to bring their produce to market. The picture is equally bleak in other sectors: schools, hospitals and factories have all been largely reduced to rubble. The Geneva Conventions are clear that civilians have the right to flee a war zone. Exercising that right in Gaza is fraught: Palestinians have a well-grounded fear that Israel will never allow them to return. Powerful members of Binyamin Netanyahu's government do not hide their desire to ethnically cleanse the territory and rebuild the Jewish settlements dismantled in 2005. Still, the dire conditions have led some people to think the unthinkable: a survey conducted in May by a leading Palestinian pollster found that 43% of Gazans are willing to emigrate at the end of the war. Mr Netanyahu may not follow through on his talk of reoccupying Gaza, which he hinted at in media leaks earlier this month. His far-right allies may not fulfil their dream of rebuilding the Jewish settlements dismantled in 2005. In a sense, though, the ideologues in his cabinet have already achieved their goal. Israel's conduct of the war has left Gazans with a grim choice: leave the territory, or remain in a place rendered all but uninhabitable. ■
Reuters
6 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump says progress made in US envoy Witkoff's meeting with Putin
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his special envoy Steve Witkoff had made "great progress" in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Washington continued its preparations to impose secondary sanctions on Friday. The meeting came two days before a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions. Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports. A White House official said that while the meeting had gone well and Moscow was eager to continue engaging with the United States, secondary sanctions that Trump has threatened against countries doing business with Russia were still expected to be implemented on Friday. No details were provided. "My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come," he added. A Kremlin aide earlier on Wednesday said Witkoff held "useful and constructive" talks with Putin on Wednesday. The two met for around three hours on a last-minute mission to seek a breakthrough in the 3-1/2-year war that began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the two sides had exchanged "signals" on the Ukraine issue and discussed the possibility of developing strategic cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but declined to give more details until Witkoff had reported back to Trump. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed pressure had worked on Russia and Moscow was now more amenable to a ceasefire. "It seems that Russia is now more inclined to a ceasefire. The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details – neither us nor the U.S.," Zelenskiy said in his nightly address. Writing separately on the X social media platform, Zelenskiy said he had discussed Witkoff's visit to Russia with Trump, adding that he had reiterated Ukraine's support for a just peace and its continued determination to defend itself. "Ukraine will definitely defend its independence. We all need a lasting and reliable peace. Russia must end the war that it itself started," Zelenskiy said, adding that European leaders had joined the call with Trump. Trump on Truth Social said he had updated some of Washington's European allies following Witkoff's meeting. Trump took a key step toward punitive measures on Wednesday when he imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, citing New Delhi's continued imports of Russian oil. No similar order was signed for China, which also imports Russian oil. The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50% — among the steepest faced by any U.S. trading partner. The Kremlin says threats to penalise countries that trade with Russia are illegal. It was not clear what Russia might have offered to Witkoff to stave off Trump's threat. Ushakov, who was present, told Russian news outlet Zvezda: "We had a very useful and constructive conversation." He added: "On our part, in particular on the Ukrainian issue, some signals were transmitted. Corresponding signals were also received from President Trump." Bloomberg and independent Russian news outlet The Bell reported that the Kremlin might propose a moratorium on airstrikes by Russia and Ukraine - an idea mentioned last week by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting with Putin. Such a move, if agreed, would fall well short of the full and immediate ceasefire that Ukraine and the U.S. have been seeking for months. But it would offer some relief to both sides. Since the two sides resumed direct peace talks in May, Russia has carried out its heaviest air attacks of the war, killing at least 72 people in the capital Kyiv alone. Trump last week called the Russian attacks "disgusting." Ukraine continues to strike Russian refineries and oil depots, which it has hit many times. Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Russia had attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine in what he called a deliberate and cynical blow to preparations for the winter heating season. Russia said it had hit gas infrastructure supplying the Ukrainian military. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Zelenskiy, said on Wednesday that a full ceasefire and a leaders' summit were required. "The war must stop and for now this is on Russia," he posted on Telegram. Putin is unlikely to bow to Trump's sanctions ultimatum because he believes he is winning the war and his military goals take precedence over his desire to improve relations with the U.S., three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters. The Russian sources told Reuters that Putin was sceptical that yet more U.S. sanctions would have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties during 3-1/2 years of war. The Russian leader does not want to anger Trump, and he realises that he may be spurning a chance to improve relations with Washington and the West, but his war goals are more important to him, two of the sources said. Putin's conditions for peace include a legally binding pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards, Ukrainian neutrality, protection for Russian speakers, and acceptance of Russia's territorial gains in the war, Russian sources have said. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine would never recognise Russia's sovereignty over its conquered regions and that Kyiv retains the sovereign right to decide whether it wants to join NATO. Witkoff, a real estate billionaire, had no diplomatic experience before joining Trump's team in January, but has been simultaneously tasked with seeking ceasefires in the Ukraine and Gaza wars, as well as negotiating in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.
South Wales Guardian
9 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Dozens killed seeking aid in Gaza as Israel considers further military action
The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots when crowds approached its forces. The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce further military action – and possibly plans for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel's ongoing military offensive and blockade are already pushing the territory of some two million Palestinians into famine. Another escalation of the nearly 22-month war could put the lives of countless Palestinians and around 20 living Israeli hostages at risk, and would draw fierce opposition both internationally and within Israel. Mr Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies have long called for the war to be expanded, and for Israel to eventually take over Gaza, relocate much of its population and rebuild Jewish settlements there. US President Donald Trump, asked by a reporter on Tuesday whether he supported the reoccupation of Gaza, said he was not aware of the 'suggestion' but that 'it's going to be pretty much up to Israel'. At least 28 Palestinians were killed overnight and into Wednesday in the Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians advanced towards them, and that it was not aware of any casualties. Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said another four people were killed in the Teina area, on a route leading to a site in southern Gaza run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American contractor. The Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza. Another 12 people were killed in Israeli air strikes, according to the two hospitals. The GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily populated areas. Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for two-and-a-half months. Israeli and US officials said a new system was needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid. The United Nations, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further mass displacement. The UN human rights office said last week that some 1,400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid since May, mostly near GHF sites but also along UN convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds. It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire. This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is 'an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law'. The experts work with the UN but do not represent the world body. The GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds threatened its forces, and the GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly crowding at its sites. Israel's blockade and military offensive have made it nearly impossible for anyone to safely deliver aid, and aid groups say recent Israeli measures to facilitate more assistance are far from sufficient. Hospitals recorded four more malnutrition-related deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 193 people, including 96 children, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Jordan said Israeli settlers blocked roads and hurled stones at a convoy of four trucks carrying aid bound for Gaza after they drove across the border into the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli far-right activists have repeatedly sought to halt aid from entering Gaza. Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammed al-Momani condemned the attack, which he said had shattered the windscreens of the trucks, according to the Jordanian state-run Petra News Agency. The Israeli military said security forces went to the scene to disperse the gathering and accompanied the trucks to their destination. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted another 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 still held in Gaza, around 20 are believed to be alive. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children. It is part of the now largely defunct Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source for the number of war casualties.
