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Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
How much aid has entered Gaza?
Gaza is now facing its fiercest fight: absolute hunger. There's no food to buy even if you could afford it, people there have told Al Jazeera. The widespread hunger has been imposed by the Israeli military as it restricted the entry of aid for months and enforced a food distribution system where people get shot almost daily. 'It's one of the most … barbaric ways to kill,' Dr James Smith, an emergency doctor who has volunteered twice in Gaza, told Al Jazeera. 'Starvation is always something that is done by one person to another. It's intended to be protracted and to maximise suffering.' On July 29, the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued its gravest warning yet: that 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip'. Mounting evidence shows a rise in hunger-related deaths. Famine thresholds for food consumption have been reached in most of Gaza, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City. According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, so far, at least 180 people have died of starvation, half of them children, underscoring the devastating toll of hunger on Gaza's young. According to the IPC, more than 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July – more than 3,000 of them severely affected. As it begins to starve after being deprived of food for days, the body begins to break down its own muscle and other tissues. Metabolism slows, kidney function is impaired and the immune system falters, reducing the body's ability to heal. Essential organs like the heart and lungs become less effective. Muscles shrink, and people feel weak. Eventually, its protein stores ravaged, the body breaks down its tissues as death nears. The aid allowed into Gaza Despite the suffering, Israel allowed just 36 aid trucks into Gaza on Saturday, even as 22,000 loaded trucks remain at the crossings, waiting to enter, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza. Before October 2023, around 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily – a number that not been reached since. In March, Israel completely blocked all exits and aid, only opening up for a tiny fraction of the needed aid in the past two months. Once food is offloaded at the border holding areas, agencies must request permission for convoys to enter and distribute in Gaza. But approvals are inconsistent. According to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), only 76 out of 138 convoy requests were approved between July 19 and 25. After approval, convoys often idle for hours, waiting up to 46 hours for final clearance to move, during which time hungry civilians gather along expected routes, hoping to intercept food. Once on the road, the journey is slow and dangerous – it can take up to 12 hours to complete a delivery due to checkpoints, security threats, and rerouting. Convoys and civilians alike face Israeli sniper fire, drone surveillance, and bombing. Only 60 drivers are approved to operate inside Gaza – far too few to meet the need. Trucks are attacked by people who are desperate for aid, creating a complicated and often violent situation for the drivers and aid seekers. On May 27, the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started working, with the plan being that it would replace all UN operations in Gaza. However, it replaced a network of some 400 distribution points operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), with four 'mega-sites' in heavily militarised zones just next to open combat zones. Civilians who walk long distances, spend nights in the open, and run a gauntlet of random shooting, find themselves fighting for scraps of food, if they're lucky. Vulnerable groups – children, the elderly, the injured, and pregnant women – are also forced to make the treacherous GHF journey. A former GHF guard, US veteran Anthony Aguilar, has told Al Jazeera how a little boy who he gave aid to was caught as 'pepper spray, tear gas, stun grenades and bullets' were shot at the feet of the crowd of aid seekers, killing the boy. Israeli soldiers have reportedly opened fire on Palestinians gathering at GHF sites on a near-daily basis. As of August 5, at least 1,487 people have been killed and 10,578 injured trying to collect aid from the GHF. Israel insists that the GHF is needed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid entering Gaza. However, internal analysis by the US Agency for International Development found no evidence of widespread aid diversion by Hamas. Israeli military officials similarly told The New York Times last week that they had no evidence that Hamas was systemically stealing aid. Airdrops Since the announcement of tactical pauses, countries like France, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have tried airdropping aid into Gaza. Much of it falls into unsafe or inaccessible areas and, in some tragic cases, people have been injured or killed trying to retrieve it. In some cases, the aid falls into the sea and becomes damaged by the saltwater. In addition, several videos posted by people in Gaza show airdropped aid that has been contaminated by mould. UN agencies say airdrops are dangerous as well as insufficient and that Israel must allow far more aid in overland and allow access to Gaza to prevent its 2.2 million people from starving. Palestinians killed and starved for over 660 days Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed nearly 61,000 people, including at least 18,430 children, in its war on Gaza. In February 2025, The Lancet medical journal estimated the death toll in Gaza from October 2023 to June 2024 was 40 percent higher than figures provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry, citing the fact that many people die outside hospitals and are never registered.
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Dmitry Medvedev: From failed Kremlin reformer to Trump's boogeyman
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and prime minister, is back in the limelight. Last week, United States President Donald Trump warned him to 'watch his words' and ordered a repositioning of two US nuclear submarines in response to Medvedev's online threats. The repositioning closer to Russia followed 'highly provocative statements' from Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of Russia's Security Council, Trump wrote on his Truth Social network on August 1. 'I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,' Trump wrote, without specifying the regions or the submarines' class. Medvedev, who, despite his title, has no power to order nuclear strikes, retorted with a gloating remark. 'If some words of Russia's former president cause such a nervous response from the oh-so-scary US president, it means that Russia is right about everything and will keep going its own way,' Medvedev wrote on Telegram. 'Let [Trump] remember his favourite movies about the Walking Dead [zombie apocalypse series] and about how dangerous can be the 'dead hand' that doesn't exist naturally,' Medvedev wrote. The online feud began in mid-July, when Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's boss and mentor for three decades, 50 days to make a peace deal with Ukraine. Medvedev called the ultimatum 'theatrical' and said that 'Russia didn't care'. 'Nuclear weapons are not Moscow's monopoly' According to a former Russian diplomat, while Trump's warnings send a signal to the Kremlin, the 'noise' around the submarines has no military significance. 'What matters far more is that Trump's words served as a reminder – nuclear weapons are not Moscow's monopoly,' Boris Bondarev, who focused on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, told Al Jazeera. Medvedev's comments reflect Putin's views – and Trump's response could return both down to the earth of realpolitik, he added. 'Had such an approach been part of a general strategy to make Putin's view on the world and his own place in it more adequate, it would have been the beginning of a real end of the war' in Ukraine, said Bondarev, who quit his foreign ministry job to protest against Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 'But it seems to me that Donald just uttered [his threat] and doesn't mean anything serious,' he said. A pawn in the US-China game To a Ukrainian military analyst, the Trump-Medvedev feud is part of Moscow's and Washington's bigger political games. 'Putin uses Medvedev as a tool to express statements related to nuclear weapons, he doesn't want to discredit his own good peacekeeper's name,' Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said ironically. In Moscow's 'media spectacle' with Washington, Medvedev plays the 'bad cop', Romanenko told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Trump's order to reposition the subs is a step to score a diplomatic victory ahead of his summit with China's Xi Jinping. The summit may take place on September 3, when Beijing will lavishly celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender that ended World War II. Putin has already been invited to oversee a military parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, but Trump is still mulling his response. The online feud may be presented to Xi as a victory of sorts, Romanenko said – along with Moscow's possible agreement to an air and sea ceasefire. The agreement will be forced by the heavy damage Ukrainian drones inflicted on Russia's military depots, transport infrastructure and oil refineries, Romanenko said. 'Playing the fool' Trump may not realise that some Russians see Medvedev as a political has-been whose online rants are reportedly fuelled by his worsening alcoholism. He was elected Russia's president in 2008, after Putin had completed two consecutive presidential terms and could not run for a third time. The move and the ensuing propaganda campaign to promote Medvedev's candidacy were nicknamed a 'castling' after the chess term. It immediately spawned political jokes that ridiculed the real power dynamic between Medvedev and Putin. In one of them, Putin arrives at a restaurant with Medvedev and orders a steak. The waiter asks, 'And what about the vegetable?' referring to the choice of a side dish. After a long look at Medvedev, Putin answers, 'The vegetable will have steak, too.' However, Medvedev cultivated a personal and political image that contrasted with Putin's. He started using social networks, met with the rock bands U2 and Deep Purple, and began cautious reforms that made analysts talk about a political thaw and a reset of Russia's ties with the West. However, Medvedev's failed perestroika ended with giant rallies against Putin's 2012 return to the presidency and massive vote rigging. The resulting tightening of political screws ended with Putin's turn to belligerent nationalism and the war in Ukraine. Five years later, another wave of popular protests throughout Russia followed the release of a documentary about Medvedev's luxurious, Monaco-sized palatial complex. The documentary was made by the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny's team and got tens of millions of views on YouTube. At the time, as Medvedev served as prime minister, his approval ratings kept waning. In 2022, Putin unceremoniously sacked him – and gave him the Security Council job, a sinecure for demoted allies. The fall from Putin's grace prompted Medvedev's transformation into an online troll who posts threats to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations and sabre-rattles Moscow's nuclear might. Many posts appeared online long after midnight. 'Degraded' There are three viewpoints on why Medvedev changed his tune to become the Kremlin's attack dog, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany's Bremen University. One is that after not being allowed to run for president for the second time in 2012, Medvedev started drinking and 'degraded to the current state', Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera. The second one is that by 'playing fool', he repeats what Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had done to survive under his ruthless predecessor Joseph Stalin to survive and compete for the Kremlin throne after his boss's death, Mitrokhin said. And the third explanation Mitrokhin agrees with is that Medvedev 'as a character, has always been very vile and warlike'. But his aggression was only limited to what Putin allowed him to do – such as nominally order Russia's 2008 war with ex-Soviet Georgia or be in charge of supplying weaponry to pro-Moscow rebels in southeastern Ukraine in 2014. Mitrokhin described him as 'a very aggressive small man with plenty of psychological complexes – a Napoleon's syndrome – who has a chance to reveal his 'inner self'. And he does – with his master's approval'.
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Is California's congressional map a Democratic gerrymander as Vance claims?
Texas Republicans, at President Donald Trump's urging, are preparing to redraw the state's congressional map in a way that could flip up to five seats to the GOP in 2026. Trump hopes to boost Republicans' chances of maintaining a narrow House majority amid the headwinds of the midterm election. The manoeuvre in Texas would be legal and not unprecedented for the state, which also undertook a Republican-driven redistricting in 2003. But Democrats have called the move a partisan power grab and an affront to the traditional practice of drawing new congressional districts every 10 years, after a new Census. But the debate over Texas's electoral map has also prompted broader questions over the fairness of the way in which voting districts are outlined. And the one state bigger than Texas – California – has caught the attention of Vice President JD Vance. 'The gerrymander in California is outrageous,' Vance posted July 30 on X. 'Of their 52 congressional districts, 9 of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?' So, does California have an unfair map, as Vance said? By the numbers, California is not a dramatic outlier when it comes to the difference between its congressional and presidential vote. However, because this difference is multiplied by a large number of districts – since California is the United States' most populous state – it produces a bounty of House seats beyond what the state's presidential vote alone would predict. Vance's description of California's map as a 'gerrymander' is also doubtful – it was drawn by a bipartisan commission, not Democratic legislators. Gerrymandering is done by politicians and political parties. Vance's office did not respond to an inquiry for this article. What the numbers show Our first step was to measure the difference between each state's House-seat breakdown by party and its presidential-vote breakdown by party, which is what Vance cited. (Our analysis builds off of a 2023 Sabato's Crystal Ball story written by this author. Sabato's Crystal Ball is a publication of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.) We removed from consideration any state with one, two or three House members in its delegation, because these small states have wide differentials that skew the comparison. For red states won by Trump, we took the percentage of Republican seats in the House delegation and subtracted the percentage of the vote Trump won in that state. Conversely, for blue states won by Kamala Harris, we took the percentage of Democratic seats in the House delegation and subtracted the percentage of the vote Harris won in the state. Our analysis found that California did elect more Democrats to the House than its presidential vote share would have predicted, but the state was not an outlier. With 83% of its House seats held by Democrats and 58% of its 2024 presidential votes going to Democrats, California ranked 13th nationally among 35 states that have at least four seats in their delegation. California has the nation's 13th widest difference between House and presidential results The top 13 differentials were split roughly evenly between blue and red states. In six states that have at least four House seats – red Iowa, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and blue Connecticut and Massachusetts – a single party controls every House seat, even though the winning presidential candidate won between 56% and 66% of the vote in those states. Another six states had a differential equal to or wider than California's: Red South Carolina and Tennessee, and blue Oregon, Illinois and Maryland, plus purple Wisconsin. California does stand out by another measure, because of its size. If you multiply the House-to-presidential differential by the number of House seats in the delegation, you get a figure for 'excess House seats', the term used in the 2023 Sabato's Crystal Ball article – essentially, a majority party's bonus in House seats beyond what presidential performance would predict. Because California has a large population represented by many House districts, even its modest differential produces a lot of extra Democratic House seats – 12, to be exact. That's the largest of any state; the closest competitors are blue Illinois and New York, and red Florida, each of which has more than four excess seats for the majority party. Texas's current congressional map has 3.7 excess seats for the Republicans. That would increase to an 8.7-seat GOP bonus if the GOP can flip the five seats they're hoping for in 2026. Is California a 'gerrymander'? Vance described California's map as a gerrymander, but political experts doubted that this term applies. A gerrymander typically refers to a map drawn by partisan lawmakers, and California's is drawn by a commission approved by voters specifically to remove the partisanship from congressional map drawing. 'California's congressional map is no gerrymander,' said Nathaniel Rakich, a contributing analyst to Inside Elections, a political analytics publication. 'It was drawn by an independent commission consisting of five Republicans, five Democrats, and four independents that is generally upheld as one of the fairest map-drawing entities in any state.' Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, said commissions tend to produce a more competitive House battleground than a fully partisan system. Of the 19 House seats his outlet currently rates as toss-ups going into 2026, only two come from states where one party had a free hand to gerrymander the current district lines. 'I think it's fair to say that commission and court-drawn maps can inject some competitiveness into the process,' Kondik said. Because the seats were drawn by a commission, California has a lot of competitive seats. This helps California Republicans despite the state's Democratic tilt. According to the 2024 pre-election ratings by Sabato's Crystal Ball, California had three Democratic-held seats in the 'lean Democratic' category, and two more that were rated 'likely Democratic'. So, going into the election, five of California's 40 Democratic-held seats are at least somewhat vulnerable to a Republican takeover. Texas Democrats aren't so lucky, under its existing map: They are able to realistically target only one 'likely Republican' seat out of 25 held by the GOP. Sometimes, geography is the enemy of a 'fair' map Despite map makers' efforts, it is sometimes impossible to produce a map that jibes perfectly with a state's overall partisan balance. The cold facts of geography can prevent this. One oft-cited example is Massachusetts, which hasn't elected a Republican to the US House since 1994. There are few Republican hotbeds in Massachusetts, and experts say they can't be easily connected into coherent congressional districts. 'Especially in deep-red or deep-blue states, parties tend to get a higher share of seats than they do of votes,' Rakich said. 'Imagine a state where Republicans get two-thirds of the vote in every district; obviously, they would get 100 percent of their seats.' Rakich said Democrats are geographically distributed more favourably in California. But in other states, Republicans benefit from better geographic distribution. 'I haven't heard Vance complain about the fact that Democrats only get 25 percent of Wisconsin's congressional seats despite regularly getting 50 percent of the vote there,' Rakich added.
