21 children died from starvation in 72 hours in Gaza, says hospital
'These deaths were recorded at hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis... over the past 72 hours,' Mohammed Abu Salmiya told reporters.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday evening that 'the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing' in Gaza, and that there were growing reports of children and adults with malnutrition.
Mr. Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals 'every moment'.
'We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza,' he added.
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2 this year, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May.
But stocks accumulated during the ceasefire gradually depleted, leaving the territory's more than two million inhabitants experiencing the worst shortages since the start of the war in October 2023.
World Food Programme director Carl Skau, who visited Gaza City in early July, called the situation 'the worst' that he had ever seen.
Last Sunday, Gaza's civil defence agency reported that at least three infants died from 'severe hunger and malnutrition' in the past week.
Gaza's health authorities said at least 20 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, as Israel pushed on with a new incursion in an area that had largely been spared heavy fighting during the 21-month war. The Israeli military ordered evacuations from parts of the city earlier this week.
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News18
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Israels leader claims no one in Gaza is starving; Data, witnesses disagree
Tel Aviv, Jul 28 (PTI) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says no one in Gaza is starving: 'There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans." President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagrees with Netanyahu's claim of no starvation in Gaza, noting the images emerging of emaciated people: 'Those children look very hungry." After international pressure, Israel over the weekend announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures meant to allow more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The U.N. has described it as a one-week scale-up of aid, and Israel has not said how long these latest measures would last. 'This aid, delivered in this way, is an insult to the Palestinian people," said Hasan Al-Zalaan, who was at the site of an airdrop as some fought over the supplies and crushed cans of chickpeas littered the ground. Israel asserts that Hamas is the reason aid isn't reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its militants of siphoning off aid to support its rule in the territory. The U.N. denies that looting of aid is systematic and that it lessens or ends entirely when enough aid is allowed to enter Gaza. Here's what we know: Deaths are increasing: The World Health Organization said Sunday there have been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of 5 — up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year. Gaza's Health Ministry puts the number even higher, reporting 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes: 24 children and 58 adults. It said Monday that 14 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is headed by medical professionals and is seen by the U.N. as the most reliable source of data on casualties. U.N. agencies also often confirm numbers through other partners on the ground. The Patient's Friends Hospital, the main emergency center for malnourished kids in northern Gaza, says this month it saw for the first time malnutrition deaths in children who had no preexisting conditions. Some adults who died suffered from such illnesses as diabetes or had heart or kidney ailments made worse by starvation, according to Gaza medical officials. The WHO also says acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month, reaching nearly one in five children under 5 years old, and has doubled in central and southern Gaza. The U.N. says Gaza's only four specialized treatment centers for malnutrition are 'overwhelmed." The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned of famine for months in Gaza but has not formally declared one, citing the lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory. Aid trucks are swarmed by hungry people: The measures announced by Israel late Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three heavily populated areas, so that U.N. trucks can more more easily distribute food. Still, U.N. World Food Program spokesperson Martin Penner said the agency's 55 trucks of aid that entered Gaza on Monday via the crossings of Zikim and Kerem Shalom were looted by starving people before they reached WFP warehouses. Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground. Israel's military says 48 food packages were dropped Sunday and Monday. Palestinians say they want a full return to the U.N.-led aid distribution system that was in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May. Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach those food distribution hubs or while crowding around entering aid trucks. Israel's military says it has fired warning shots to disperse threats. The U.N. and partners say that the best way to bring food into Gaza is by truck, and they have called repeatedly for Israel to loosen restrictions on their entry. A truck carries roughly 19 tons of supplies. Israel's military says that as of July 21, 95,435 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the war began. That's an average of 146 trucks per day, and far below the 500 to 600 trucks per day that the U.N. says are needed. The rate has sometimes been as low as half of that for several months at a time. Nothing went in for 2 1/2 months starting in March because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza. Delivering aid is difficult and slow: The U.N. says that delivering the aid that is allowed into Gaza has become increasingly difficult. When aid enters, it is left just inside the border in Gaza, and the U.N. must get Israeli military permission to send trucks to pick it up. But the U.N. says the military has denied or impeded just over half the movement requests for its trucks in the past three months. If the U.N. succeeds in picking up the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs swarm the convoys and strip them of supplies. The Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that stopped after Israel targeted them with airstrikes. (AP) NSD NSD view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
NDTV
an hour ago
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Gaza Civil Defence Said Israeli Fire Killed 16 Palestinians
Palestine: Gaza's civil defence agency said 16 people were killed by Israeli fire Monday in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war. Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included five people killed in an overnight strike on a residential building in the southern Gaza district of Al-Mawasi. A pregnant woman was among those killed, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, adding its teams saved the woman's foetus by performing a Caesarean section in a field hospital. Israel designated Al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of the southern city of Khan Yunis, as a humanitarian zone in the early months of the war. Despite that designation, it has continued to be hit by air strikes and now shelters a large share of Gaza's displaced people. All of Gaza's 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the start of the war, and the United Nations says 88 percent of the territory is now either under evacuation orders or within Israeli military zones. The civil defence spokesman said five people were killed in another air strike in Khan Yunis' Japanese neighbourhood. The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the Al-Mawasi and Khan Yunis strikes. Bassal said six more people were killed in two separate strikes in Gaza City and central Gaza. Central Gaza's Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat camp said in a statement that one person was killed and nine were wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for aid in central Gaza. The health ministry of Gaza's Hamas-run government said Monday five people had died of malnutrition in Gaza in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total death count from malnutrition to 147 since the start of the war. After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted to enter at a trickle in late May. Stocks accumulated during the ceasefire have depleted, leaving the territory's inhabitants experiencing the worst shortages since the start of the war in October 2023.
The Wire
4 hours ago
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'Not a Side Effect of War': Israeli Human Rights Groups Say Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza
New Delhi: In a first, Tel Aviv-based human rights organisations, B'Tsalem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, have released statements calling out Israel for committing the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. They have said that Israel has systematically and deliberately targeted Palestinians and that its western allies have the power to stop it. In both their statements, the leading human rights groups have noted that Israel's policy towards Palestinians shifted on October 13, 2023, which marked the beginning of a military onslaught lasting more than 21 months and counting. B'Tsalem stated that it has resulted in mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives. "The mass arrests and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps, and tearing apart the social fabric of Gaza, including the destruction of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions, compound it. The campaign is also an assault on Palestinian identity itself, through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)," it stated. The group also highlighted the failure of the international community in stopping the atrocities, especially the leaders of the Western world, particularly the United States and Europe, who, it said, "share responsibility by providing support that enables Israel's acts of destruction". Meanwhile, Physicians for Human Rights' statement focused on the starvation and killing of children by the Israeli occupation. "Each day, dozens die of malnutrition. Ninety-two percent of infants aged six months to two years don't get enough to eat. At least 85 children have already starved to death. Israel has displaced 9 in 10 Gazans, destroyed or damaged 92% of homes, and left over half a million children without schools or stability. It has wiped out essential health services – including dialysis, maternal care, cancer treatment, and diabetes management," it stated. The organisation said that this was not temporary but a "strategy to eliminate the conditions needed for life". "Even if Israel stops the offensive today, the destruction it has inflicted guarantees that preventable deaths – from starvation, infection, and chronic illness – will continue for years. This is not collateral damage. This is not a side effect of war. It is the systematic creation of unlivable conditions. It is the denial of survivability. It is a genocide," it stated. B'Tsalem further warned that this genocide will not remain confined to the Gaza Strip, and that the actions and underlying mindset driving it may be extended to other areas as well. "The recognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas where Palestinians live under Israeli rule, demand urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community," it said. The groups have urged international community to fulfil its duty Ito stop the genocide Israel is carrying out in Gaza. The death toll in Gaza now stands close to 60,000, as per the health ministry data, and the remaining population is on the verge of famine. Over the weekend, Israel announced a few measures to allow aid access, including a limited 10-hour daily "tactical pause" in certain areas of Gaza City. However, there have also been reports Israeli attacks taking place where people were trying to collect aid.
