Restricted aid, rising deaths mark worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified, causing immense humanitarian challenges.
Regions such as Kordofan and Darfur face restricted humanitarian access and rampant destruction, exacerbating conditions for civilians.
Aid agencies report difficulties in operations due to safety concerns and describe the crisis as one of the world's worst displacements.
The conflict, rooted in a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has claimed at least 40,000 lives since April 2023 and plunged the country into one of the world's worst hunger and displacement crises.
In North Kordofan, over 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed around the town of Bara during the weekend of July 12, according to the United Nations.
The RSF was blamed for at least 60 of these deaths starting July 10, with civil groups estimating as many as 300. A military airstrike that same week killed 11 members of a single family in Bara, while air raids in West Kordofan left at least 23 civilians dead and over two dozen injured.
Aid operations halted amid escalating insecurity
Kadry Furany of Mercy Corps described a dire situation where communities are trapped by shifting front lines, unable to flee or access lifesaving aid.
The organization has suspended operations in three of four localities, and access beyond Kadugli, South Kordofan's capital, is now in serious doubt. Movement across the region is nearly impossible, and the need for a sustained humanitarian corridor is urgent.
One aid worker's brother was killed in an attack on Um Seimima village on July 13, underscoring the personal toll on those trying to help.
Villages are being destroyed, and most humanitarian agencies cannot operate in the region. 'It is a complete war zone,' said Mathilde Vu of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Darfur buckles under new displacement and disease
Fighting has pushed hundreds of people from Kordofan into Tawila, North Darfur, a region already overwhelmed by previous displacements from Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher. Since April, Tawila has taken in 379,000 displaced persons.
Those fleeing walk long distances with little food or water and sleep in the open. Measles has begun to spread in Zalingi, West Darfur, due to the influx.
In May alone, over 46,000 people were displaced from West Kordofan. In North Darfur, five children were killed by shelling in El Fasher, and flooding in Dar As Salam displaced 400 more between July 14 and 15. Cholera outbreaks, f ood insecurity, and continued violence are compounding the crisis.
' Another aid worker added, 'The situation is getting worse every day and that's what war is.'
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Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
U.N. says facilities hit, guesthouse in Gaza raided by Israeli troops
The United Nations said Monday that two of its guesthouses in the central Gaza Strip were either hit or came under attack, including a raid by Israeli troops on a residence for employees of the World Health Organization, as the military moved into an area where at least 50,000 people had been sheltering from the months-long bombardment. The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement that the agency's guesthouse in Deir al-Balah was struck three times before Israeli forces entered the premises, separating families, men from women. Men were strip-searched and interrogated at gunpoint, Ghebreyesus said, while women were forced to evacuate with their children. The Israeli military did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the incidents. But an early internal assessment indicated that the attacks on the WHO guesthouse, which began just after noon local time, were from incoming Israeli fire, according to a U.N. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Even after the U.N. requested the Israeli military hold its fire so that staff could be evacuated, a quadcopter drone entered the guesthouse and exploded, the official said. Elsewhere in Deir al-Balah, a hub for U.N. and other aid groups, a guesthouse used by the U.N. Office for Project Services was also hit while there were 13 employees inside, the agency said. Israeli tanks targeted the same location in March, killing a veteran staffer. The Israeli ground operation in Deir al-Balah puts troops deeper into central Gaza than at any point in the 21 months of war. Israel's Army Radio reported Monday that troops from the Golani Brigade had entered the city's southern districts as part of a 'targeted' operation to increase pressure on Hamas, after 'preliminary' air and artillery strikes. The military issued displacement orders for much of Deir al-Balah on Sunday, eliminating one of the last areas of Gaza that was not declared a formal combat zone. Now, the majority of Gaza's 2.1 million people are squeezed into just 12 percent of the territory, according to the U.N., which said the Israeli maneuvers would severely restrict its already-limited movement inside Gaza, 'choking humanitarian access when it is needed most.' More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's military operations in Gaza, which began after Hamas militants launched attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. The Palestinian enclave is under a near-total Israeli blockade, leaving many residents malnourished and on the verge of starvation. Doctors report that people have started to die of hunger and are fainting from exhaustion in the streets. The hunger crisis in Gaza has reached 'astonishing levels of desperation,' Ross Smith, a senior official with the U.N. World Food Program, said Monday at a news briefing in New York. A third of people are not eating for days in a row, he said, and a quarter of the population lives in famine-like conditions. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 1,000 people have been shot dead by Israeli troops during desperate scrambles for food aid distributed by the U.S. and the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The organization's distribution sites are in or near areas of Gaza controlled by the Israeli military, which says it has opened fire using 'warning shots' after troops perceived themselves to be under threat. In a statement, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, described the GHF aid program as a 'sadistic death trap' and a 'massive hunt of people, in total impunity.' A joint statement Monday from 27 nations, including Britain, Canada and France, urged an immediate end to the war and condemned the killing of civilians seeking aid. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' the statement said. 'We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.' The statement called on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on aid and condemned Hamas for continuing to hold around 50 hostages kidnapped from Israel, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive. 'We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release,' the statement read. ' … We call on all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law.' Israel rejected the statement's description of its conduct, describing it as 'disconnected from reality' and blaming Hamas for the lack of a deal to end the war, saying the armed group was instead 'running a campaign to spread lies about Israel.' Doctors Without Borders said Monday that evacuation orders and fighting in Deir al-Balah had forced 36 of the organization's Palestinian colleagues to abruptly leave a busy health facility that had been treating an influx of patients from aid distribution sites, in order to evacuate their families. 'This new displacement order has also impacted one of the main lifelines for water distribution in southern Gaza,' it said in a statement. 'Today water distribution trucks could not reach the plant, and these orders will put at risk anyone who tries to distribute water from here in the near future.' Residents said that a large number of families had left the area under Israeli evacuation orders. 'Tanks have begun moving in the Salah al-Din Street, al-Baraka and al-Laham Street areas,' said Akram Basheer, a resident whose home was in an area outside the military evacuation zone. He said he could hear shelling and that smoke was visible above one of the nearby U.N. warehouses. Rabiha Salman, 58, said that the fighting had forced her family of nine to flee for the fifth time since the war began. 'When they announced the evacuation of the area on Sunday, we didn't think it could be real, but in the evening, when the shelling became intense, we decided to leave,' she said. She added: 'Our whole life has become displacement and suffering, for almost two years.' Loveluck reported from London and Balousha from Hamilton, Ontario. Heba Farouk Mahfouz and Siham Shamalakh in Cairo, Abbie Cheeseman in Beirut and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
4 hours ago
25 countries sign statement calling for end of war in Gaza
Twenty-five countries have released a joint statement calling for the immediate end of the war in Gaza and accusing Israel of not allowing sufficient aid in, demanding it must do so to comply with international humanitarian law. "We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now," the statement began. "The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity." "The Israeli Government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law," the statement further said. Throughout the conflict, Israel has maintained they are sending enough aid into Gaza but international aid organizations have repeatedly said there is not enough aid, and the United Nations has reported conditions of malnutrition inside of Gaza. The statement is signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K. The call to action was released Monday following an incident Sunday in which at least 81 Palestinians were killed and another 150 were injured while trying to gain access to food, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, which said the majority of those killed were gathered near the Zikim border between Gaza and Israel. The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that its troops fired near crowds "in order to remove an immediate threat posed to them," though it wasn't specific. A review is ongoing, but "preliminary review indicates that the reported number of casualties does not align with existing information," according to the IDF. Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement on X Monday that the country "rejects" the 25-nation joint statement "as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas." "All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas, which started this war and is prolonging it," Marmorstein's statement said. The statement further said that while there is a "concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal," Hamas "stubbornly refuses to accept it." "The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognize Hamas's role and responsibility for the situation." Marmorstein said. "Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides." "At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind," the Marmorstein statement concluded. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the joint statement "disgusting" in a post on X. "25 nations put pressure on @Israel instead of savages of Hamas! Gaza suffers for 1 reason: Hamas rejects EVERY proposal. Blaming Israel is irrational," the post said. At least 875 people have been killed in Gaza while trying to get food aid in recent weeks, according to the United Nations. "It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid," the joint statement said. It also condemned Hamas for refusing to release the remaining Israeli hostages. "The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release," the statement said. "A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families." United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement Monday that he is "appalled by the accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza." The "last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing," Guterres said in part, adding that he "condemns the ongoing violence, including the shooting, killing, and injuring of people attempting to get food for their families." "Civilians must be protected and respected, and they must never be targeted. The population in Gaza remains gravely undersupplied with the basic necessities of life," Guterres' statement said. The 25 signatory countries further called on the Israeli government to "immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively," and for "all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law." "We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire," the statement continued. "Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this." "We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region," the statement concluded. On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV also renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. "I once again call for an immediate end to the barbarity of this war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict," the pope said during Sunday Angelus prayer from his summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, according to the Associated Press.
New York Times
8 hours ago
- New York Times
Israel and Gaza: Is It Genocide?
To the Editor: Re 'I'm a Scholar of Genocide. I Know It When I See It,' by Omer Bartov (Opinion guest essay, July 20): The charge of genocide against Israel is a deeply serious one — and, in my view, a misapplication of the term. Genocide, by definition, requires intent to destroy an ethnic or national group. Israel's stated and demonstrated intent is to dismantle Hamas, a terrorist organization that murdered about 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, and continues to use civilians as shields. Civilian casualties in Gaza are heartbreaking, and Israel must be held accountable for its conduct. But equating this war — however devastating — with genocide oversimplifies a tragic, complex conflict. Israel has issued warnings, created evacuation routes and urged civilians to flee. These are not the actions of a genocidal regime. We can and must mourn innocent lives, advocate humanitarian aid and pursue peace. But we should also resist using terms that inflame rather than clarify. The world needs solutions rooted in truth, not accusations that blur moral and legal lines. Seth EisenbergFort Lauderdale, Fla. To the Editor: I applaud Omer Bartov for having the courage to write his guest essay, making the case that what we are witnessing in Gaza is indeed genocide. While not an academic, I came to the same conclusion as Dr. Bartov but have been apprehensive about expressing my views publicly. Having served with the United Nations in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, I have seen ethnic cleansing and genocide firsthand on three continents. While the locales and situations are different, the hallmarks of these horrific acts are all the same. And what we are seeing in Gaza looks shockingly familiar to those who study this dark corner of history or who have witnessed it. Like Dr. Bartov, based on my experience in United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world, I know genocide when I see it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
