WHO says Israeli military attacked staff residence in Gaza
The United Nations agency said the WHO staff residence was attacked three times, with airstrikes causing a fire and extensive damage, and endangering staff and their families, including children.
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes hostages may be held. Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.
"Israeli military entered the premises, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward Al-Mawasi amid active conflict. Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot, and screened at gunpoint," WHO said.
Two WHO staff and two family members were detained, it said in a post on X, adding that three were later released, while one staff member remained in detention.
"WHO demands the immediate release of the detained staff and protection of all its staff," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Palestinians flee Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Sunday, July 20, 2025, after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders ahead of expected operations in the area. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Deir al-Balah is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy infrastructure and capabilities of the militant group Hamas.
WHO said its main warehouse, located within an evacuation zone, was damaged on Sunday due to an attack that triggered explosions and a fire inside.
WHO stated it will remain in Deir al-Balah and expand its operations despite the attacks.
Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government's aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed over 59,000 Palestinians, according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population, and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The World Health Organization describes the health sector in Gaza as being "on its knees", with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent mass casualty influxes.
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Israeli forces push into parts of a Gaza city that the war had largely spared
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The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Harrowing viral pic of starving Gaza boy ‘was HIJACKED' by Hamas to create ‘fake news', campaigners say
A PHOTO seemingly showing a starving boy in Gaza was "hijacked" by Hamas to create "fake news", it was claimed last night. The picture of Muhammad al-Matouq in his mum's arms went viral last week - amid claims Israel was Advertisement 6 Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a 1.5-year-old child in Gaza City, Gaza Credit: Getty 6 Campaigners say he was already suffering genetic disorders Credit: Getty 6 He was said to have dropped from 9 to 6 kilograms Credit: Getty But campaigners say he was already suffering genetic disorders and his mum and brother looked healthy in the picture. Pro-Israel investigative journalist David Collier said: "This is not the face of famine. It is the face of a medically vulnerable child whose tragic situation was hijacked and weaponised." He accused news outlets who used the image of benefiting Hamas and creating "fake news ". On Monday, the Gaza health ministry said at least 14 people had died in the past 24 hours of starvation and malnutrition, bringing the war's death toll from hunger to 147, including 89 children. Advertisement read more news Israel announced a The Israeli Defence Force said it would halt operations in Muwasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City from 10am to 8pm. It said it will set up corridors to help aid agencies deliver food and supplies. Within hours, Jordanian and Emirati planes had air-dropped 25 tonnes of aid. Advertisement Most read in The US Sun The World Food Programme (WFP) said 60 trucks of aid had been dispatched - but this amount fell short of Gaza's needs. WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa , and Eastern Europe, Samer AbdelJaber said: "Sixty is definitely not enough. So our target at the moment, every day is to get 100 trucks into Gaza." Israel announces 'tactical pause' in fighting in parts of Gaza as IDF sets up 'designated humanitarian corridors' The Programme explained how almost 470,000 people in Gaza are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition treatments. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said only a ceasefire would alleviate the needs of those 'desperately suffering'. Advertisement And Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, said the latest aid drops would not solve food shortages in Gaza. Last week, more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the Palestinian enclave. The military also said Saturday that it had connected a power line to a desalination plant, expected to supply daily water needs for about 900,000 Gazan people. Israel's foreign ministry said the military would "apply a 'humanitarian pause' in civilian centres and in humanitarian corridors" on Sunday morning. Advertisement The announcement came after indirect ceasefire talks in Doha between Israel and Hamas were broken off with no deal in sight. The UN said that humanitarian pauses in Gaza would allow "the scale up of humanitarian assistance". The Israeli military stressed that despite the humanitarian steps , "combat operations have not ceased" in the Gaza Strip. Israel has previously . Advertisement 6 Palestinians, who lost their relatives in Israeli attacks, mourn as the deceased are being brought to Nasser Hospital in Gaza's Khan Yunis Credit: Getty 6 Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City Credit: Reuters 6 Trucks carrying aid enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing today Credit: Getty Advertisement
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
A father in Gaza: Our children are dying as the world watches. We don't want your pity
Mass starvation is now in Gaza . It is here. It is deadly. And it is getting worse by the day. Exactly two months since the Israeli government-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating, more than 100 organisations including ActionAid published a letter sounding the alarm on hunger, urging governments to act. We are desperate for the world to listen. Massacres at the GHF food distribution sites in Gaza are occurring almost daily, with more than 1,000 starving people desperate for food killed to date. Thousands more have been injured. This is on top of the fact that nearly two million exhausted Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by Israel, with the most recent mass displacement order issued on July 20th, confining Palestinians to less than 12 per cent of Gaza. These conditions are impossible. READ MORE The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime. In warehouses just outside Gaza, and even within Gaza itself, tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them. The government of Israel's restrictions, delays and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation and death. Illnesses such as acute watery diarrhoea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration. Distributions in Gaza average just 28 trucks a day, far from enough for more than two million people, many of whom have gone weeks without assistance. As the letter from more than 100 organisations stated, the UN-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning. In my home city of Deir al-Balah in northern Gaza, where I am currently displaced with my family and working as a humanitarian worker for ActionAid Palestine, starving children are everywhere, sunken-eyed and limp in their mothers' arms, their skin hanging loosely on skeletal frames. Older children with limbs as thin as sticks walk around in a daze, eyes dull, too tired to play and too hungry to cry, their bodies failing from lack of food. [ The beaches here in Israel are full. Just an hour's drive away Palestinians are starving Opens in new window ] These children are dying in plain sight with heartbreaking images of emaciated bodies dominating newspapers and screens, telling the true story of what is happening in Gaza. And the world is watching. But not acting. I write this not only as a humanitarian worker, but as a father of three children in Gaza witnessing a catastrophe unfold before my eyes. A catastrophe not just measured in shattered buildings and bombs, but in the slow, agonising deaths of the population – especially children – from hunger and thirst. More than 90 per cent of Gaza's people are now facing either crisis-level or catastrophic levels of food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report. That is nearly two million people – many of them children – who have run out of ways to feed themselves. One hundred and thirteen people have died from starvation since October 2023, and 81 of those are children. What we are seeing here is not a famine warning. It is famine, plain and simple. And it is claiming lives. Every day I see the heartbreaking consequences. Not just children with protruding ribs and swollen bellies, but parents who haven't eaten for days. People collapsing, not from injury, but from hunger. Malnutrition has become as deadly as the bombs. In displacement camps, families count themselves lucky if they get to eat one meal a day if they can find it. Fresh produce is virtually non-existent. A kilo of tomatoes that once cost $1 now sells for up to $30, if you can even find them. Shelves are bare, and the aid that trickles in is a mere drop in an ocean of desperate need. For newborns and infants, the situation is even more horrifying. Baby formula is almost impossible to find. When it does appear, it's often expired, or costs more than families can afford. In the absence of formula, mothers are mixing sugar and flour into water just to keep their babies alive. This puts their tiny bodies at enormous risk of illness and long-term damage. But what choice do these parents have? As a father, I am responsible for my children's needs, but it's hard to secure one meal per day for my family. As a humanitarian worker, I am also trying to help local communities and our people in Gaza, delivering what aid is available. But there is nothing much to be given to the people. Whatever is available is a drop in the ocean. People are no longer afraid of air strikes, they are afraid of starvation. I have spoken to neighbours who say they would rather die quickly in a bombing than suffer this slow, grinding hunger. Despite the global headlines, despite the footage of skeletal children and mothers crying over the tiny bodies of their babies, the world has failed to stop this devastation. World leaders offer words. Resolutions are passed and appeals are made. But still, the bombs fall, and the borders stay largely shut and famine deepens. And yet, this can be stopped. We are grateful to the Irish people for their support and the recognition of Palestine as a state. But governments must stop waiting for permission to act. We cannot continue to hope that current arrangements will work. [ I showed my friends in Israel this photo of a starving baby in Gaza and asked them if they knew Opens in new window ] It is time for them to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; reject military-controlled aid distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund impartial humanitarian organisations. States must also pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition. The airdrops announced by the Israeli government over the weekend are a totally inadequate response to this crisis, and amount to nothing more than an attempt to whitewash a policy of deliberate starvation. This type of piecemeal arrangement cannot replace the legal and moral obligations by states to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access to desperately needed aid. The lack of action is sickening. What will it take? History will ask what the world did while children in Gaza starved. I am writing this in the hope that my words will reach those with the power to make this nightmare stop. The people of Gaza do not need pity. We need action. We need food, medicine, clean water. We need the bombs to stop and the siege to end. We need borders to open to allow for humanitarian aid. We need the world to finally say 'enough'. Alaa Abu Samara is Gaza emergency response manager for ActionAid Palestine
RTÉ News
12 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 16
Gaza's civil defence agency said 16 people were killed by Israeli fire today in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war. Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said 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% 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 said it was looking into the Al-Mawasi and Khan Yunis strikes. Mr 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 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 toll 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 2 March, 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. 'A drop in the ocean' Aid that is being air dropped into Gaza is a step in the right direction, but the level of aid getting into the territory in recent months is "a drop in the ocean" of what is needed, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said. Peace talks in the Middle East came to a standstill last week after the US and Israel recalled negotiating teams from Qatar, with White House special envoy Steve Witkoff blaming Hamas for a "lack of desire" to reach an agreement. Since then, Israel has promised military pauses in three populated areas of Gaza to allow designated UN convoys of aid to reach desperate Palestinians. The UK, which is joining efforts to airdrop aid into the enclave and evacuate children in need of medical assistance, said that access to supplies must be "urgently" widened. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the UN's Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-Ordinator said the situation in Gaza is "unrelentingly grim at the moment for civilians". "Gaza is starving. One in every three people has not eaten for days and days in a row," Mr Fletcher said. "So the needs are enormous, and we're ready to go. You know, the aid that's got in in recent months is a drop in the ocean of what's needed." Mr Fletcher said aid agencies were "ready to mobilise" and hoped that the routes were secured so food, water, medicine and shelter could be brought to desperate civilians. In relation to how much aid will be allowed in, he said it is not clear. During the last ceasefire, over 42 days, 600 to 700 trucks a day were getting into Gaza. "That's what we need right now", he said. "That's what the civilians in Gaza need. Yesterday, I think we got some somewhere around over 100 trucks in, nothing like enough." He said that all the border crossings need to be opened and all restrictions on visas and other "bureaucratic restraints" and "security restrictions" should be removed. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to raise the prospect of reviving ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas when he meets US President Donald Trump in Scotland. The prime minister will travel to Ayrshire, where the US president is staying at his Turnberry golf resort, for wide-ranging discussions on trade and the Middle East as international concern grows over starvation in Gaza. 'Unrelentingly focused' Mr Fletcher said that the UN agency is facing a tough time but remains "unrelentingly focused". "I'm talking to the teams on the ground last night, this morning. They themselves are hungry. They themselves have been going without food. Incredibly brave people and they're driving these trucks facing enormous crowds of desperate, starving Palestinians." Gaza needed to be flooded with aid, he said. "We can do that. We've got the aid. We could reach everyone in Gaza with food, with medical support, with shelter. But we've got to get going at much, much bigger scale."
