There's no justification for children to go hungry
With refence to the editorial Israel must let more food in to Gaza and end the starvation (July 28): Thousands of children are hungry in Gaza. According to the UN, one out of five children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition. What is the culpability of these innocents? They are not members of Hamas or any militant establishment. They have no role in the current discord. Yet, they are hollowed by hunger. Those who endure these acrimonious days will carry scars of deprivation and hurt for the rest of their lives.
It is time to end this protracted wretchedness of children. Food and health care should be continuously provided on a priority basis to children. The UAE should be extolled for supplying food and medicines to the people of war-shattered Gaza. The children should be in school with books. Instead they are on the streets with pots, scrounging for food. When will mankind awaken?
Rajendra Aneja, Mumbai
First woman brigadier in Dubai Police makes history
In reference to Nick Webster's piece Trailblazing Dubai Police officer shares pride after being named first female brigadier (July 27): Many congratulations to her. This is matter of pride for the city.
Masooma Ajaz, Dubai
The cultural legacy of Ziad Rahbani
With regard to Saeed Saeed's piece Seven ways Ziad Rahbani changed Arabic music (July 27): Interesting piece. Just one clarification: Kifak enta was not a love confession to a childhood sweetheart. It is from Fairouz to Ziad inspired by what she told him the first time she saw him after he came back to Lebanon.
Rachele Hayak, Abu Dhabi
Many of Ziad's lyrics, rhymes and harmonies will stay with us forever.
Francoise Eid Salameh, Doha, Qatar
He was a genius who shaped generations with his music and satire.
Rana C, Beirut
To add, his jazz style was influenced by the classical tradition he was trained in, and it shows in the structure and direction of the music, which is impressive even beyond the Arab world, in western culture.
Nour H, New York
Heartbreaking to see Fairouz at the funeral. Even though her son was 69 years old and lived a fruitful life, he was still her baby.
Dean M, Chicago, US
So fortunate to have been around when he was creating magic with his music.
Rabab Atie, Beirut, Lebanon
Rest in peace, Ziad. The voice of our generation. And just a note that calling Fairouz renowned feels like an understatement. She was nothing short of legendary.
Rebecca Rahi, Tyre, Lebanon
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Gulf Today
4 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Dire water shortages compound hunger, displacement in Gaza
Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory's residents. Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas damaged more than 80 per cent of the territory's water infrastructure. "Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children," Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City, told AFP. Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient. Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn't flowing. Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza's water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed. Gaza City spokesman Assem Al-Nabih told AFP that the municipality's part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks. A boy fills up containers with water from the remaining water still left in underground pipes, in Beit Lahia. AFP Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict. Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders. At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza's power as part of its war effort. Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries. Lastly, Gaza's desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply. Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak. More than 75 per cent of wells are out of service, 85 per cent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable. Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tonnes of rubbish is clogging the streets. "Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure," says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia. In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells. But coastal Gaza's aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water. A boy fills up containers with water from the remaining water still left in underground pipes, in Beit Lahia. AFP In 2021, the UN children's agency UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza's groundwater was unfit for consumption. With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria. Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer. Though Gaza's water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly. "Just like food, water should never be used for political ends," UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said. She told AFP that, while it's very difficult to quantify the water shortage, "there is a severe lack of drinking water." "It's extremely hot, diseases are spreading and water is truly the issue we're not talking about enough," she added. Opportunities to get clean water are as dangerous as they are rare. On July 13, as a crowd had gathered around a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, at least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike, according to Gaza's civil defence agency. A UAE-led project is expected to bring a 6.7-kilometre pipeline from an Egyptian desalination plant to the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, in Gaza's south. The project is controversial within the humanitarian community, because some see it as a way of justifying the concentration of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza. On July 24, a committee representing Gaza's prominent families issued a cry for help, calling for "the immediate provision of water and humanitarian aid, the rapid repair of infrastructure, and a guarantee for the entry of fuel". Gaza aid workers that AFP spoke to stressed that there was no survival without drinking water, and no disease prevention without sanitation. "The lack of access, the general deterioration of the situation in an already fragile environment -- at the very least, the challenges are multiplying," a diplomatic source working on these issues told AFP. Mahmoud Deeb, 35, acknowledged that the water he finds in Gaza City is often undrinkable, but his family has no alternative. "We know it's polluted, but what can we do? I used to go to water distribution points carrying heavy jugs on my back, but even those places were bombed," he added. At home, everyone is thirsty -- a sensation he associated with "fear and helplessness." "You become unable to think or cope with anything." Agence France-Presse
Gulf Today
7 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Chaos, gangs, gunfire: Gaza aid fails to reach most needy
The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter Gaza after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, UN agencies, aid groups and analysts say. After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organisations. Every day, AFP correspondents on the ground see desperate crowds rushing towards food convoys or the sites of aid drops by Arab and European air forces. On Thursday, in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust. "Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives," Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid, told the media. Palestinians climbo onto a truck as they seek for aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on Friday. Reuters To avoid disturbances, World Food Programme (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail. "A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag," sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip. 'Truly tragic' Mohammad Abu Taha went at dawn to a distribution site near Rafah in the south to join the queue and reserve his spot. He said there were already "thousands waiting, all hungry, for a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils." Palestinians transport gallons of clean water from a distribution point in Gaza City. AFP "Suddenly, we heard gunshots..... There was no way to escape. People started running, pushing and shoving each other, children, women, the elderly," said the 42-year-old. "The scene was truly tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead." Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Friday. The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires "warning shots" when people approach too close to its positions. International organisations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes. On Tuesday, in Zikim, the Israeli army "changed loading plans for WFP, mixing cargo unexpectedly. The convoy was forced to leave early, without proper security," said a senior UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the south of Gaza, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, "there are two possible routes to reach our warehouses (in central Gaza)," said an NGO official, who also preferred to remain anonymous. "One is fairly safe, the other is regularly the scene of fighting and looting, and that's the one we're forced to take." 'Darwinian experiment' Some of the aid is looted by gangs -- who often directly attack warehouses -- and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts. "It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest," said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Palestinians climb onto trucks as they seek for aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. Reuters "People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour," he said. Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: "We're in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It's become a new profession." This food is then resold to "those who can still afford it" in the markets of Gaza City, where the price of a 25-kilogramme bag of flour can exceed $400, he added. 'Never found proof' Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the UN, which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war triggered by the Palestinian group Hamas's October 2023 attack. A Palestinian man carries a bag of humanitarian aid he received at the Rafah corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. Agence France-Presse The Israeli authorities have used this accusation to justify the total blockade they imposed on Gaza between March and May, and the subsequent establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation supported by Israel and the United States which has become the main aid distributor, sidelining UN agencies. However, for more than two million inhabitants of Gaza the GHF has just four distribution points, which the UN describes as a "death trap". "Hamas... has been stealing aid from the Gaza population many times by shooting Palestinians," said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel "never found proof" that the group had "systematically stolen aid" from the UN. A Palestinian boy who was injured while seeking humanitarian aid at the Rafah corridor in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP Weakened by the war with Israel which has seen most of its senior leadership killed, Hamas today is made up of "basically decentralised autonomous cells" said Shehada. He said while Hamas fighers still hunker down in each Gaza neighbourhood in tunnels or destroyed buildings, they are not visible on the ground "because Israel has been systematically going after them". Aid workers told AFP that during the ceasefire that preceded the March blockade, the Gaza police -- which includes many Hamas members -- helped secure humanitarian convoys, but that the current power vacuum was fostering insecurity and looting. "UN agencies and humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to facilitate and protect aid convoys and storage sites in our warehouses across the Gaza Strip," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead at Oxfam. "These calls have largely been ignored," she added. 'All kinds of criminal activities' The Israeli army is also accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid. "The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza," Jonathan Whittall, Palestinian territories chief of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), told reporters in May. A Palestinian man who was injured while seeking humanitarian aid at the Rafah corridor, is carried into a field hospital in the Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control. The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks". The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab. Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, said many of the gang's members were implicated in "all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that". "None of this can happen in Gaza without the approval, at least tacit, of the Israeli army," said a humanitarian worker in Gaza, asking not to be named. Agence France-Presse
Khaleej Times
9 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Dire water shortages compound hunger and displacement in Gaza
Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory's residents. Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas damaged more than 80 per cent of the territory's water infrastructure. "Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children," Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City, told AFP. Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient. Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn't flowing. Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza's water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed. Gaza City spokesman Assem Al Nabih told AFP that the municipality's part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks. Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict. Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders. At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza's power as part of its war effort. Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries. Lastly, Gaza's desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply. Sewage floods Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak. More than 75 per cent of wells are out of service, 85 per cent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable. Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tonnes of rubbish is clogging the streets. "Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure," says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia. In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells. But coastal Gaza's aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water. In 2021, the UN children's agency Unicef warned that nearly 100 per cent of Gaza's groundwater was unfit for consumption. With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria. Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer. Spreading diseases Though Gaza's water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly. "Just like food, water should never be used for political ends," Unicef spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said. She told AFP that, while it's very difficult to quantify the water shortage, "there is a severe lack of drinking water". "It's extremely hot, diseases are spreading and water is truly the issue we're not talking about enough," she added. Opportunities to get clean water are as dangerous as they are rare. On July 13, as a crowd had gathered around a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, at least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike, according to Gaza's civil defence agency. A UAE-led project authorised by Israel is expected to bring a 6.7-kilometre pipeline from an Egyptian desalination plant to the coastal area of Al Mawasi, in Gaza's south. The project is controversial within the humanitarian community, because some see it as a way of justifying the concentration of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza. 'Fear and helplessness' On July 24, a committee representing Gaza's prominent families issued a cry for help, calling for "the immediate provision of water and humanitarian aid, the rapid repair of infrastructure, and a guarantee for the entry of fuel". Gaza aid workers that AFP spoke to stressed that there was no survival without drinking water, and no disease prevention without sanitation. "The lack of access, the general deterioration of the situation in an already fragile environment — at the very least, the challenges are multiplying," a diplomatic source working on these issues told AFP. Mahmoud Deeb, 35, acknowledged that the water he finds in Gaza City is often undrinkable, but his family has no alternative. "We know it's polluted, but what can we do? I used to go to water distribution points carrying heavy jugs on my back, but even those places were bombed," he added. At home, everyone is thirsty — a sensation he associated with "fear and helplessness."
