At least 78 killed amid Israeli strikes in Gaza as some aid restrictions eased
Israel announced on Sunday that the military would pause operations in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Muwasi for 10 hours a day until further notice to allow for the improved flow of aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where concern over hunger has grown, and designate secure routes for aid delivery.
Israel said it would continue military operations alongside the new humanitarian measures.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment about the latest strikes, which occurred outside the time frame for the pause Israel declared would be held between 10am and 8pm local time.
Aid agencies have welcomed the new aid measures, which also included allowing airdrops into Gaza, but said they were not enough to counter the rising hunger in the Palestinian territory.
Images of emaciated children have sparked outrage around the world, including from Israel's close allies.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday called the images of emaciated and malnourished children in Gaza 'terrible'.
Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war.
In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine to pressure Hamas to free hostages.
Israel partially lifted those restrictions in May but also pushed ahead on a new US-backed aid delivery system that has been wracked by chaos and violence.
Traditional aid providers have also encountered a similar breakdown in law and order surrounding their aid deliveries.
Most of Gaza's population now relies on aid.
Accessing food has become a challenge that some Palestinians have risked their lives for.
The Awda hospital in central Gaza said it received the bodies of seven Palestinians who it said were killed on Monday by Israeli fire close to an aid distribution site run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The hospital said 20 others were wounded close to the site.
The GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pregnant woman and her child were killed along with 11 others after their house was struck in the Muwasi area, west of the southern city of Khan Younis, according to a hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Another strike hit a two-storey house in the western Japanese neighbourhood of Khan Younis, killing at least 11 people, more than half of them women and children, said the Nasser Hospital, which received the casualties.
At least five others were killed in strikes elsewhere in Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on most of the strikes.
It said it was not aware of one strike in Gaza City during the pause that health officials said killed one person.
In its October 7 2023 attack, Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
It still holds 50, more than half of whom Israel believes to be dead.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 59,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children.
The ministry operates under the Hamas government.
The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
8 minutes ago
- The Sun
Scale of Gaza hunger is seen from space as satellite pics show crowd surround aid trucks after UN declares famine
THE hunger crisis spreading across Gaza can now be seen from space in gut-wrenching satellite images. Thousands of starving Palestinians can be seen crowding around aid trucks begging for food in the war-torn Strip. 8 8 8 The pictures were taken before the United Nations warned of a serious famine being created in Hamas territory. Images from the south of the Strip show civilians gathering around 15 lorries which were all sent into Gaza filled with food. Away from the surging crowds sits evidence of the gruelling conditions in which Palestinians have been living in for just under two years now. Makeshift tents and crumbling buildings are spread across the Strip with a ceasefire deal with Hamas thugs and Israeli forces yet to be agreed. Global leaders, including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump, have said a peace deal must be made to save those living under the awful conditions. The calls for a ceasefire have been amplified in recent days after the global body responsible for monitoring hunger warned Gazans are now experiencing the "worst-case scenario of famine". The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative made up of 21 aid groups, governments and UN agencies, announced: "Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths." Famine has not yet been confirmed in the region with the IPC still trying to ascertain all the facts on the ground. They will need to prove at least 20 per cent of Gaza's 2.1 million population - 420,000 people - are experiencing an "extreme" lack of food. More than 30 per cent of children under five also have to be suffering from acute malnutrition with at least two people per 10,000 dying from starvation per day. Israel to allow foreign aid to parachute into Gaza but continues bombardment despite growing global pleas for ceasefire In July, at least 63 people, including 24 children under five, died from hunger, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hamas' health ministry claims 127 people have died from a lack of food since Israel launched a counter attack inside Gaza following October 7. It alleges at least a third of them are children. The scale of hunger comes after Israel accused Hamas of treating civilians in the Strip as pawns and human shields. Israel has also claimed the terrorists are stealing food from aid trucks. Earlier this month, 20 people were killed at an aid distribution site in Gaza after a "chaotic and dangerous" crowd surge. The US and Israel-backed GHF said it believed the harrowing push was "driven by agitators in the crowd" who were affiliated to Hamas. Harrowing scenes also saw Palestinian people overrun food trucks carrying aid into Gaza. Distressing footage shared by Turkish news site TRT shows a sea of starving Gazans desperately climbing onto vehicles to reach food. 8 8 8 Some individuals appear to manage to grab boxes of aid, while other malnourished people seem to scramble to safety due to the heaving crowds. Israel announced a pause in fighting over the weekend and have started to allow food to be air dropped into Gaza. They are also working on opening up new supply corridors for aid workers to safely deliver food. Military operations will be halted for 10 hours each day as officials look to establish the new designated humanitarian aid corridors. It comes as Trump has revealed he has a mystery plan with Israel to end the war in Gaza and announced a mission to get aid to starving Palestinians. The US President vowed to set up food centres across Gaza - insisting: "We want to get the children fed." He described the scenes as "terrible" - adding: "We have to help on a humanitarian basis. He also distanced himself from comments made by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there was no starvation in Gaza. Netanyahu had said on Sunday: "There is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza." Asked if he agreed with the Israeli PM, Trump said: "I don't know. I mean, based on television, I would say not, particularly because those children look very hungry." 8 8
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Extraordinary satellite images show huge crowds descending on aid trucks as UN claims Gaza is ‘on the brink of full-scale famine' amid mounting blame game
New satellite images show masses of starving Palestinians rushing to American-backed aid distribution point to pick up food and water. Photos taken by PlanetLabs shows innumerable Gazans gathering just over a kilometre away from a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid site in Khan Younis, Gaza's second city. They can be seen crowding around roughly 15 aid trucks that have been let into Gaza by Israel, as the Strip is entering a 'worst-case scenario' famine the world's main nutrition monitor warned. Rival aid efforts have sparked a war of words, pitting Israel, the US and the GHF against the UN, international aid groups and dozens of governments from around the world. Some have accused Israel of deliberately starving Gaza's civilian population. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said that air drops over Gaza will not be enough to avert the 'humanitarian catastrophe.' 'The worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip,' said the UN-backed group of organisations, used as a monitor to gauge malnutrition. 'Immediate, unimpeded' humanitarian access into Gaza was the only way to stop rapidly rising 'starvation and death', it said. The IPC issued their warning 'alert' after days of aid groups sounding the alarm over hunger-related deaths in Gaza. Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2 after ceasefire talks broke down. In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume, amid warnings of a wave of starvation. The IPC said its latest data shows that 'famine thresholds' have been reached in 'most of the Gaza Strip'. Hunger-related deaths of young children, it said, were rising fast. 'Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished.' Children under the age of five were dying of hunger, 'with at least 16 reported deaths since 17 July', IPC said. 'Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,' it said Tuesday. Israel and the US accuse Hamas of stealing aid - which they deny - and the UN of failing to prevent it. The US says it has not seen evidence of mass aid diversion in Gaza by Hamas. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and no starvation per se. Donald Trump diverged from Mr Netanyahu's comments on Monday, insisting there is 'real starvation' in Gaza. Asked if he agreed with Mr Netanyahu that it was a 'bold-faced lie' to say Israel was fuelling hunger, he said: 'I don't children look very real starvation stuff.' On Monday night, Mr Netanyahu's office said that Israel would work with aid groups, the US and Europe to ensure 'large amounts of humanitarian aid flows' into Gaza. Israel said that 120 aid trucks had entered Gaza from crossings on Sunday, and that Jordan and the UAE had airdropped 28 packages of food. The GHF said it had delivered more than 95 million meals directly to Palestinians in Gaza in total. But on Monday, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said a further 14 people had died from malnutrition over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 147 since the start of the war, according to the ministry. It added today that more than 60,000 people have been killed since the war started. Israel has said that Hamas is using a so-called 'famine narrative' for leverage in ceasefire talks, which broke down last week as the US and Israel left talks in Doha, suggesting a cynical 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire' from Hamas. Hamas responded with incredulity and insisted it did want to continue negotiations. Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya then said on Monday there was 'no point in continuing negotiations' under current conditions. A source close to Hamas told CNN: 'After the Israeli side withdrew from the negotiations, Hamas is considering reversing the flexibility it had shown regarding the timeline for releasing the 10 living Israelis captives.' Until talks resume, Gaza's 2.1 million population remains in dire need of aid. A former British soldier in Gaza shared chaotic and unsettling scenes of civilians rushing to collect aid from a distribution site as essentials continued to trickle into the beleaguered Palestinian enclave. Andrew Fox, a former British Army airborne officer, shared a series of clips from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site in Rafah, describing an 'influx of hungry Gazans coming to get their aid'. The video was shared on social media in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after Israel said on Sunday it would halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of the Gaza Strip and allow new aid corridors. Mr Fox's dispatch from Rafah offers a rare insight into the coordination of aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip. Journalists are pushing to be allowed in and out of the enclave and say reporting from the enclave is nearing 'extinction' with local reporters facing 'threat of starvation'. 'The flow of people just keeps coming,' Mr Fox said, reporting from the sidelines of the crowd in the first few minutes of opening. The initial influx was mostly young men, he said, who were ordered to dismount from motorbikes to avoid injuries. Within 20 minutes, he said, they were starting to see more women and children arrive to claim essentials held in reserve. After 45 minutes, the aid had mostly been depleted. Mr Fox said the team had used smoke and flashbang grenades to 'encourage the last of the male crowd out of the site' to allow the team to hand out aid held in reserve for women and children. Mr Fox described GHF cardboard boxes, which he said were enough to buy one kilogram (2.2lbs) of flour in the barter economy. Increasingly, he said, Palestinians were taking empty boxes and wooden pallets to be used as firewood, with Gaza facing blackouts. 'No live rounds at all have been fired,' he said. Women and young people could be seen leaving the site with aid, waving and gesturing towards the camera. The GHF, a US-backed private aid operation supported by Israel, has faced pressure in recent days after the UN reported that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians seeking food aid, mostly near distribution points. Israel accused Hamas of instigating chaos near the aid sites. It said its troops had only fired warning shots, and that they do not deliberately shoot civilians. The GHF has accused Hamas of massive aid theft in defending its distribution model. An internal US government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft of US-funded humanitarian supplies by Hamas, challenging the rationale Israel and the US give for backing the aid operation, as reported by Reuters last week. Mr Fox described the challenging environment facing locals as they waited to start distributing aid in Rafah. 'The terrain here is as destroyed as has been reported in the media. It's no lie. The place is wrecked. These people do need food. They do need feeding. They need the aid that these teams are bringing to them. 'This is really, really hot. There is water on site but people are still struggling for the very basics of life, and GHF are here to try and at least alleviate some of that suffering.' He wrote in a July 24 blog that while aid was entering Gaza, 'the grim truth is that supply is not the same as access'. 'Gaza's crisis is mainly a result of distribution collapse and governance issues, worsened by Hamas's tactics and the paralysis of traditional aid channels.' In testimonies shared with MailOnline, International Rescue Committee (IRC) staff inside Gaza described harrowing scenes. 'People are collapsing in the streets from emaciation... I saw a child digging through a pile of trash for food. He found nothing,' said IRC staffer Abdelraheem Hamad. 'The sound of children crying from hunger never stops. Every day, people knock on our doors asking for food. Not money — just bread,' said staffer Rania Al Shrehi. The leading international authority on food crises said in a new alert Tuesday that the 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip', predicting 'widespread death' without immediate action. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have 'dramatically worsened' the situation, including 'increasingly stringent blockades' by Israel. The IPC is a global initiative that partners with 21 aid groups, international organizations, and UN agencies, and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population. The alert, still short of a formal famine declaration, follows an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war. While international pressure led Israel over the weekend to announce measures to deliver more aid, the United Nations and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm and unload delivery trucks before they can reach their destinations. 'Formal famine declarations always lag reality,' David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee aid group, said in a statement ahead of the IPC alert. 'By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people - half of them children under 5 - had already died of hunger. By the time famine is declared, it will already be too late,' he said. 'In the coming days, thousands of Gaza's children will either be rescued — or allowed to die. That is the choice before us.' The conflict between Israel and Gaza continued as aid agencies scrambled to deliver essentials. The sun sets over Gaza, ravaged by war, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 28 Gaza's civil defence said Tuesday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians, including women and children, in the central Nuseirat district. Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said the strikes were carried out overnight and into the morning and 'targeted a number of citizens' homes' in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
AstraZeneca seeks US drug price cuts amid expansion plans, strong demand
July 29 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca (AZN.L), opens new tab has proposed price cuts to its drugs in the United States, its CEO said on Tuesday, days after unveiling a $50 billion investment to expand there, as President Donald Trump pressures pharmaceuticals companies to lower costs. Speaking to journalists after second-quarter revenue and profit beat expectations, CEO Pascal Soriot said Trump's administration was reviewing the company's proposals. He did not specify which drugs were included. Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs as he also pushes drugmakers to reduce prices to what other countries pay. However, he signalled earlier this month that companies would be given a year to 18 months to "get their act together" before any sector-specific levies take effect. "We definitely support the idea of rebalancing with some reduction of pricing levels in the U.S., and some increase, we're not talking about massive increases, in Europe," AstraZeneca's Soriot said. He added he expects all medicines for U.S. patients to be produced locally within a few months, and is also considering selling some medicines to customers directly. AstraZeneca shares rose as much as 3% after its results, but pared some gains to trade up 1.6% by 1214 GMT. "The big uncertainty, unsurprisingly, remains U.S. tariffs and Most Favoured Nation pricing in the pharmaceutical sector. AstraZeneca has looked to get ahead of this uncertainty," said Sheena Berry, a healthcare analyst at Quilter Cheviot. The U.S. accounted for more than 40% of AstraZeneca's revenue in 2024. The UK's largest-listed company by market value had prioritised the U.S. market - the world's largest, worth $635 billion - even before Trump's return to office. AstraZeneca's efforts are paying off as strong U.S. demand, and robust sales of newer cancer, heart and kidney disease medicines drove total revenue for the second quarter 11% higher to $14.46 billion, on a constant currency basis. It logged double-digit growth in the U.S. despite headwinds from changes in U.S. Medicare price negotiations, while sales of cancer drugs including Tagrisso, Lynparza, Calquence, Truqap and Imfinzi beat expectations. Core earnings stood at $2.17 per share. Analysts were expecting $2.16, from $14.15 billion in sales, according to a company-provided consensus. AstraZeneca is betting on a wave of expected launches of 20 new medicines and its U.S. expansion to reach $80 billion in annual revenue by 2030 and offset generic competition. On Tuesday, it maintained its 2025 outlook and increased its interim dividend by 3%. The drugmaker in April forecast only a limited impact from potential U.S. tariffs, adding it would be able to meet its annual outlook if the levies on European imports were similar to those in other industries. A European Union-U.S. trade deal over the weekend will result in a 15% tariff on most goods, including pharmaceuticals, from the region.
