Is There Famine in Gaza? Let's Not Wait to Find Out.
On Tuesday, 111 signatories from international aid organizations issued a statement warning that 'mass starvation' was now spreading in Gaza. The previous day, 29 countries, including France and the UK, jointly condemned Israel's 'drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.'
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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
33 more Palestinians killed by Israeli fire while seeking food aid in Gaza
At least 33 more Palestinians seeking food aid in Gaza have killed by Israeli fire, according to hospitals in the territory. Witnesses described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged towards aid sites on Sunday, and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said a staff member was killed when Israeli forces shelled its office. Israel's military said it was reviewing the Red Crescent's claim. The Red Cross called it an 'outrage' that so many first responders have been killed in the war. Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than two million, which experts warn faces 'a worst-case scenario of famine' because of Israel's blockade. No aid entered Gaza between March 2 and May 19, and supplies have been limited since then. Two hospitals in southern and central Gaza reported receiving bodies from routes leading to the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid sites, including 11 killed in the Teina area while trying to reach a distribution point in Khan Younis. Three Palestinian witnesses, including one travelling through Teina, told The Associated Press they saw soldiers open fire on the routes, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. Israel's military said it was not aware of casualties as a result of its gunfire near aid sites in the south. The United Nations says 859 people were killed near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31 and hundreds of others have been killed along the routes of UN-led food convoys. The GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it only fires warning shots. Both claim the death tolls have been exaggerated. The GHF's media office said on Sunday that there was no gunfire 'near or at our sites'. Gaza's Health Ministry said six more Palestinian adults had died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, taking the toll among adults to 82 over the five weeks that such deaths have been counted. Malnutrition-related deaths are not included in the ministry's count of war casualties. Ninety-three children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war began, the ministry added. Israel has taken steps in the past week to increase the flow of food into Gaza, saying 1,200 aid trucks have entered while hundreds of pallets have been airdropped, but the UN and relief groups say conditions have not improved. The UN has said 500 to 600 trucks a day are needed. About 1,200 people were killed by Hamas militants in the 2023 attack that sparked the war and another 251 were abducted. Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 60,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, is staffed by medical professionals. The UN and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. Israel has disputed the figures but has not provided its own account of casualties. The latest casualties came the day after videos of hungry and suffering Israeli hostages — released by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza — triggered outrage across the political spectrum after the hostages, speaking under duress, described grim conditions and an urgent lack of food. Tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday urging Israel and the US to urgently pursue the hostages' release after suspending ceasefire talks. 'In this new video, his eyes are extinguished. He is helpless, and so am I,' Tami Braslavski, mother of one of the hostages, Rom Braslavski, said in a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it had spoken with the Red Cross to seek help in providing the hostages with food and medical care. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was 'appalled by the harrowing videos' and called for access to the hostages.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Doctors Without Borders US CEO: Gaza aid system is ‘unsafe' and ‘inefficient'
Doctors Without Borders USA CEO Avril Benoît emphasized the need for improved humanitarian aid distribution systems in Gaza amid aid organizations' warnings of hunger and mass starvation. Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Benoît described what she and doctors are witnessing firsthand. ""People are desperate. The patients that we're seeing are malnourished and we have seen women deliver prematurely," Benoît said. She said the lack of food aid has put newborns at risk due to mothers not having enough nutrition to breastfeed. "We're also seeing people coming in with all the catastrophic injuries that you would expect in an open zone of airstrikes and continuing hostility as they're coming in with those trauma injuries, and third-degree burns to their entire bodies, children with their faces blown off, and all the major orthopedic cases." She explained how children's bodies aren't strong enough to ward off infections and disease. "Their bodies are not strong enough to even fight, to -- to be able to withstand the risk of infection. They're -- they're not recovering properly. And that's -- that's exacerbating the problem in the health facilities because, of course, you would want people to have all the chances in the world to be able to overcome their injuries, to discharge them, to make room for others," she said. Benoît blamed Israel for clinics and hospitals in Gaza not being able to do their jobs. "The hospital infrastructure, which Israel has largely destroyed with the clinics and other outpatient facilities that we have and with the rest of the humanitarian organizations that are trying to support the medical needs in Gaza, we are completely overwhelmed and starvation is making things all that much more catastrophic." Benoît's appearance on ABC News comes after U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited Gaza on Friday to inspect current models of food aid distribution. Several aid organizations report that some people in Gaza, especially children, are down to eating only one meal per day and others not eating at all. "My own colleagues are eating every second day and scrounging around for food," Benoît said. She described the current model of distribution, controlled by Israel and backed by the U.S., as being significantly ineffective and inefficient. "It's unsafe. It's an inefficient way to deliver aid. People have to cross very unsafe zones to reach those areas that are controlled by the IDF and military contractors from the U.S., and then there are insufficient quantities." She further stated how Israel is making matters more difficult for those in Gaza who need the aid. "And the injuries are not only people being shot as they're leaving the zone with their bags of flour, but it's also from the trampling that happens, the injuries that happen when people are crushing and jumping over each other because of all the gunshots against unarmed civilians who are just trying to survive with a bit of food aid," Benoît said. Despite the dire situation, Benoît remains hopeful as she presses for more aid and for a ceasefire to come soon. "So we very much hope, for everyone's sake, all the civilians inside Gaza, including hostages, but of course, all of the people, the families and the children that there's an end to this with a real, lasting ceasefire," she added.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Israel forces shoot Palestinian boy in eye at aid site amid Gaza starvation
A Palestinian teenager, shot in the eye by Israeli forces while desperately seeking food for his family near a United States and Israeli-backed GHF site in Gaza, is unlikely to regain sight in his left eye, doctors treating him have said, as the population of the besieged and bombarded enclave suffers from forced starvation. Fifteen-year-old Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar told Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers kept shooting at him even after he was struck by a bullet, making him think 'this was the end' and 'death was near'. Relaying the harrowing chain of events from a hospital bed with a white bandage covering one eye, Abu Jazar said he went to the site around 2am (23:00 GMT). 'It was my first time going to the distribution point,' he said. 'I went there because my siblings and I had no food. We couldn't find anything to eat.' He says he moved forward with the crowd until he reached al-Muntazah Park in the Gaza City environs about five hours later. 'We were running when they began shooting at us. I was with three others; three of them were hit. As soon as we started running, they opened fire. Then I felt something like electricity shoot through my body. I collapsed to the ground. I felt as though I had been electrocuted … I didn't know where I was, I just blacked out. When I woke up, I asked people 'Where am I?'' Others near Abu Jazar told him he had been shot in the head. 'They were still firing. I got scared and started reciting prayers.' A doctor at the hospital held a phone light near the boy's wounded eye and asked him if he could see any light. He could not. The doctor diagnosed a perforating eye injury caused by a gunshot wound. Abu Jazar underwent surgery and said, 'I hope my eyesight will return, God willing.' Hospitals receive bodies of more aid seekers Gaza's Health Ministry reported on Sunday that 119 bodies, including 15 recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings or other places, and 866 wounded Palestinians have arrived at the enclave's hospitals over the past 24-hour reporting period. At least 65 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid, and 511 more were wounded. Israeli forces have routinely fired on Palestinians trying to get food at GHF-run distribution sites in Gaza, and the United Nations reported this week that more than 1,300 aid seekers have been killed since the group began operating in May. Gaza's famine and malnutrition crisis has been worsening by the day, with at least 175 people, including 93 children, now confirmed dead from the man-made starvation of Israel's punishing blockade, according to the territory's Health Ministry. More than 6,000 Palestinian children are being treated for malnutrition resulting from the blockade, according to the Global Nutrition Cluster, which includes the UN health and food agencies. Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, says, 'There's a very, very small amount of trucks coming into Gaza – about maybe 80 to 100 trucks every single day – despite the fact that this 'humanitarian pause' was for more aid to enter the Gaza Strip. 'Palestinians are struggling to get a bag of wheat flour. They're struggling to find a food parcel. And this shows the fact that this pause and all the Israeli claims are not true because on the ground, Palestinians are starving, ' she said. Khoudary noted that the entire population had been reliant on UN agencies and other partners to distribute food. 'More Palestinians die every single day due to the forced starvation and malnutrition,' she said. 'Since the blockade started, those distribution points have not been operating, and now, nothing's back to normal. Palestinians are still struggling, and not only that, they're being killed now for the fact that they're approaching trucks, the GHF, because they want to eat.'Solve the daily Crossword
