
MSF says Israel allowing ‘ridiculously inadequate' amount of aid into Gaza
GENEVA: The amount of aid Israel has started to allow into war-ravaged Gaza is not nearly enough and is 'a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over,' the MSF aid group said on Wednesday.
Israel has come under massive international pressure to abandon its intensified military campaign in Gaza and to allow aid into the territory, where humanitarian agencies say a total blockade has sparked critical food and medicine shortages.
'The Israeli authorities' decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving,' said Pascale Coissard, Medecins Sans Frontieres ( Doctors Without Borders) emergency coordinator in Gaza's Khan Yunis.
No aid has been distributed yet in Gaza, UN says
'The current authorisation for 100 per day, when the situation is so dire, is woefully inadequate,' MSF said in the statement.
'Meanwhile, evacuation orders are continuing to uproot the population, while Israeli forces are still subjecting health facilities to intensive attacks.'
The UN announced Monday that it had been cleared to send in aid for the first time since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, sparking severe shortages of food and medicine.
Israel said 93 trucks had entered Gaza from Israel on Tuesday but the United Nations said the aid had been held up.

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Business Recorder
6 days ago
- Business Recorder
WHO says trucks with medical aid must be allowed into Gaza
GENEVA: A top World Health Organization official deplored Monday that none of the agency's trucks with medical aid had been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since Israel ended its blockade. Humanitarian aid has begun trickling back into the Palestinian territory in recent days after more than two months of blocked access. For more than 11 weeks, 'there has been no WHO trucks entering into Gaza for medical care support', the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean regional director Hanan Balkhy told a press conference in Geneva. 'The situation is devastating. We are not only worried about the immediate work that we are supporting, and are willing and hoping to continue to support the people, but we are extremely concerned about the aftermath of this,' she said, citing an impact on generations to come. Israel has stepped up a renewed offensive to destroy the Hamas group, drawing international condemnation of the blockade since early March that has sparked severe food and medical shortages. Sweden PM says to summon Israel envoy over Gaza aid access 'Around 400 trucks were cleared to go into Gaza… but supplies from only 115 trucks have been able to go through – and nothing has reached the besieged north,' said Balkhy, adding that none of those were WHO trucks. She said 51 trucks with medical equipment on board were waiting to cross the border. Ahmed Zouiten, the WHO region's emergencies director, said he hoped it was just a question of time before the UN health agency's trucks could cross into the territory. But he said it was 'too early for us to know' whether they would cross soon or whether there were 'any issues that we have to follow up on'. Israel's renewed offensive has triggered international criticism, with European and Arab leaders meeting in Spain calling for an end to the 'inhumane' and 'senseless' war, while humanitarian groups say the trickle of aid is not nearly enough. Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Hamas also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead. On Monday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 3,822 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 53,977, mostly civilians.


Business Recorder
6 days ago
- Business Recorder
UK surgeon in Gaza says ‘never seen so many blast injuries'
KHAN YUNIS: A British surgeon visiting a Gaza hospital said Monday she had 'never seen so many blast injuries' as Israel ramps up operations in the coastal Palestinian territory ravaged by 20 months of war. 'I've never seen so many blast injuries in my life and I've never seen so many injuries in Gaza in my life,' said Victoria Rose, a part of a British medical delegation to Nasser Hospital in south Gaza's Khan Yunis. Rose, who has previously visited Gaza to work, said she had seen a lot of severe burns, typical injuries for people who have been in an explosion. 'We're seeing these injuries in really small children as well', Rose said from Nasser Hospital's paediatric wing. With Israel conducting dozens of air strikes every day in Gaza since restarting bombardments on March 18, humanitarians have said that nowhere is safe in Gaza. Israeli strike on Gaza: Father in intensive care after nine children killed The surgeon added that the large burns she had witnessed during her visit 'are very difficult to survive from even in the Western countries where there is no war, and we have functioning hospitals and all the medical supplies at our fingertips.' 'So, here, most of these burns are going to be unsurvivable.' Rose said the other type of injuries from blasts occurred when 'whatever is around you gets whipped up in the explosion and ejected at very high force, and that then hits the civilians and it causes penetrating injuries'. Often, the victims suffer partial or complete amputations in the bombings, Rose said, and because they are living in tents they turn up with large amounts of dirt in their wounds. 'Our first course of action is to try and clean the wounds, and then to try and cover them and salvage as much of the body part as we can.' These challenges are compounded by the dwindling number of functional medical facilities in Gaza, Rose said, including Nasser Hospital. 'On the second floor, one of the wards has been blown up, and also on the fourth floor the burns unit was blown up'. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that '94 per cent of the hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational'. Rescuers said Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 52 people on Monday, 33 of them in a school turned shelter.


Express Tribune
7 days ago
- Express Tribune
Gaza father in intensive care after Israeli strike kills nine children
Hamdi Al-Najjar, a wounded Palestinian father and doctor who, according to medics, lost nine of his children in an Israeli strike on Friday, lies in a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Nasser Hospital after being injured in the same strike, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 25, 2025. PHOTO:REUTER Listen to article The father of nine children killed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza over the weekend remains in intensive care, said a doctor on Sunday at the hospital treating him. Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air invasion occurred, killing all but one of them. He was rushed to the nearby Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, where he is being treated for his injuries. Abdul Aziz Al-Farra, a thoracic surgeon, said Najjar had undergone two operations to stop bleeding in his abdomen and chest and that he sustained other wounds, including to his head. "May God heal him and help him," Farra said, speaking by the bedside of an intubated and heavily bandaged Najjar. According to the BBC, Najjar sustained injuries to his brain, lungs, right arm, and kidney. These are the children of Dr. Alaa and Dr. Hamdi Al Najjar. 9 of their 10 children were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza. Gaza's Civil Defence teams published video showing their charred bodies getting recovered from the under the rubble. — Hamdah Salhut (@hamdahsalhut) May 24, 2025 Bulgarian doctor Milena Angelova-Chee, who is treating him at Nasser Hospital, told the BBC that his "life remains in danger" and that the hospital is "doing everything we can for him." The Israeli military has confirmed it conducted an air invasion on Khan Younis on Friday, but claims it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers. The military claims it is looking into the "uninvolved civilians" killed. According to medical officials in Gaza, the nine children were aged between one and 12 years old. The child who survived, a boy named Adam, is in serious but stable condition, according to the hospital. The BBC reported that doctors say Adam is "doing reasonably well." Najjar's wife, Alaa, also a doctor, was not at home at the time of the strike. She was treating Palestinians injured in Israel's more than 20-month war in Gaza against Hamas in the same hospital where her husband and son are receiving care. Video verified by the BBC and shared by Health Ministry Director Dr Muneer Alboursh showed small charred bodies being lifted from the rubble. The nine children — Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman, and Sidra — were aged between just a few months and 12 years, according to the BBC. "She went to her house and saw her children burned, may God help her," said Tahani Yahya Al-Najjar of her sister-in-law. "With everything we are going through, only God gives us strength." Tahani visited her brother in the hospital on Sunday, whispering to him that she was there: "You are okay, this will pass." On Saturday, Ali Al-Najjar said that he rushed to his brother's house after the strike, which had sparked a fire that threatened to collapse the home, and searched through the rubble. "We started pulling out charred bodies," he said. In its statement about the air invasion, the Israeli military defended its actions by claiming Khan Younis was a "dangerous war zone." Practically all of Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians have been displaced after more than 20 months of war. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, according to international media. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war crimes against defenseless civilians in the enclave. Israel's invasion of Gaza since October 7 has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, Gazan health officials say. Most of them are civilians, including more than 16,500 children under the age of 18, according to Gaza's health ministry.