Watch: Hunger Sirens Echo
This comes amid what Gaza's Health Ministry described as a catastrophic famine, with over two million people facing hunger. The ministry accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon, stating that "children are dying of hunger in front of the cameras," and issued an urgent appeal for international pressure on Israel to allow the entry of aid. It added that the blockade on medical supplies has caused a total collapse of the healthcare system in the strip.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) also reported that Israeli authorities are starving one million children in Gaza. It called for lifting the blockade and allowing UNRWA to deliver food and medicine.
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Nahar Net
2 days ago
- Nahar Net
UN says Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 aid-seekers in Gaza since May
by Naharnet Newsdesk 23 July 2025, 11:29 More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 25 people across Gaza, according to local health officials. Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries. Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid — without providing evidence of widespread diversion — and blames U.N. agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in. The military says it has only fired warning shots near aid sites. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, rejected what it said were "false and exaggerated statistics" from the United Nations. The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 101 people, including 80 children, have died in recent days from starvation. The deaths could not be independently verified, but U.N. officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight. Israel eased a 2½-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding U.N.-run system and the newly created GHF. Aid groups say it's not nearly enough. 'I do it for my children' Dozens of Palestinians lined up Tuesday outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City, hoping for a bowl of watery tomato soup. The lucky ones got small chunks of eggplant. As supplies ran out, people holding pots pushed and shoved to get to the front. Nadia Mdoukh, a pregnant woman who was displaced from her home and lives in a tent with her husband and three children, said she worries about being shoved or trampled on, and about heat stroke as daytime temperatures hover above 90 F (32 C). "I do it for my children," she said. "This is famine — there is no bread or flour." The U.N. World Food Program says Gaza's hunger crisis has reached "new and astonishing levels of desperation." Ross Smith, the agency's director for emergencies, told reporters Monday that nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza's population is going without food for multiple days in a row. MedGlobal, a charity working in Gaza, said five children as young as 3 months had died from starvation in the past three days. "This is a deliberate and human-made disaster," said Joseph Belliveau, its executive director. "Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them." The charity said food is in such short supply that its own staff members suffer dizziness and headaches. Aid delivery model criticized Of the 1,054 people killed while trying to get food since late May, 766 were killed while heading to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. human rights office. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around U.N. convoys or aid sites. Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the U.N. rights office, says its figures come from "multiple reliable sources on the ground," including medics, humanitarian and human rights organizations. He said the numbers were still being verified according to the office's strict methodology. Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces regularly fire toward crowds of thousands of people heading to the GHF sites. The military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its armed contractors have only fired into the air on a few occasions to try to prevent stampedes. A joint statement from 28 Western-aligned countries on Monday condemned the "the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians." "The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," read the statement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, France and other countries friendly to Israel. "The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable." Israel and the United States rejected the statement, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting Israeli terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages abducted in the militant-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the fighting. Hamas has said it will release the remaining hostages only in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will keep fighting until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed. Strikes on tents sheltering the displaced Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people Tuesday across Gaza, according to local health officials. One strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in the built-up seaside Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said that it wasn't aware of such a strike by its forces. The dead included three women and three children, the hospital director, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, told The Associated Press. Thirty-eight other Palestinians were wounded, he said. An overnight strike that hit crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City killed eight, hospitals said. At least 118 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. "A bag of flour covered in blood and death," said Mohammed Issam, who was in the crowd and said some people were run over by trucks in the chaos. "How long will this humiliation continue?" The Israeli military had no immediate comment on that strike. Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Hamas, because the militants operate in densely populated areas. Israel renewed its offensive in March with a surprise bombardment after ending an earlier ceasefire. Talks on another truce have dragged on for weeks despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack, and killed around 1,200 people. Fewer than half of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Ya Libnan
2 days ago
- Ya Libnan
Baby boy starves to death in Gaza as hunger spreads, medics say
Adham carries the body of his nephew, six-week-old infant Yousef al-Safadi, who died of starvation according to health officials, at Shifa hospital in Gaza City July 22, 2025. REUTERS/Khamis Al-Rifi By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas Summary Six-week-old Yousef's lifeless body lay limp on a hospital table in Gaza City, his skin stretched over protruding ribs and a bandage where a drip had been inserted into his tiny arm. Doctors said the cause of death was starvation . He was among 15 people to starve to death in the last 24 hours in Gaza, according to doctors who say a wave of hunger that has loomed over the enclave for months is now finally crashing down. Yousef's family couldn't find baby formula to feed him, said his uncle, Adham al-Safadi. 'You can't get milk anywhere, and if you do find any it's $100 for a tub,' he said, looking at his dead nephew. Three of the other Palestinians who died of hunger over the last day were also children, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in airstrikes, shelling and shooting since launching their assault on Gaza in response to attacks on Israel by the Hamas group that killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in October 2023. For the first time since the war began, Palestinian officials say dozens are now also dying of hunger. Gaza has seen its food stocks run out since Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March and then lifted that blockade in May with new measures it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups. At least 101 people are known to have died of hunger during the conflict, according to Palestinian officials, including 80 children, most of them in just the last few weeks. Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, denies that it is responsible for shortages of food. Israel's military said that it 'views the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza as a matter of utmost importance', and works to facilitate its entry in coordination with the international community. It has blamed the United Nations for failing to protect aid it says is stolen by Hamas and other militants. The fighters deny stealing it. More than 800 people have been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in mass shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near distribution centres of a new, U.S.-backed aid organization. The United Nations has rejected this system as inherently unsafe, and a violation of humanitarian neutrality principles needed to ensure that distribution succeeds. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation for the 2.3 million residents of the Palestinian enclave a 'horror show'. 'We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles,' Guterres told the U.N. Security Council. 'That system is being denied the conditions to function.' The Norwegian Refugee Council, which supported hundreds of thousands of Gazans in the first year of the war, said its aid stocks were now depleted and some of its own staff were starving. 'Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,' its director Jan Egeland told Reuters. 'Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyse our work,' he said. The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday that its staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty in Gaza due to hunger and exhaustion. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that images of civilians killed during the distribution of aid were 'unbearable' and urged Israel to deliver on pledges to improve the situation. FOOD AND MEDICINE SHORTAGES On Tuesday, men and boys lugged sacks of flour past destroyed buildings and tarpaulins in Gaza City, grabbing what food they could from aid warehouses. 'We haven't eaten for five days,' said Mohammed Jundia. Israeli military statistics showed on Tuesday that an average of 146 trucks of aid per day had entered Gaza over the course of the war. The United States has said a minimum of 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza's population. 'Hospitals are already overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire. They can't provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,' said Khalil al-Deqran, a spokesperson for the health ministry. Deqran said some 600,000 people were suffering from malnutrition, including at least 60,000 pregnant women. Symptoms among those going hungry include dehydration and anaemia, he said. Baby formula in particular is in critically short supply, according to aid groups, doctors and residents. The health ministry said at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, including 16 people living in tents in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any incident or artillery in the area at that time. REUTERS
L'Orient-Le Jour
3 days ago
- L'Orient-Le Jour
Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill 15 amid torrent of criticism
Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed 15 people in the Palestinian territory Tuesday, just hours after the World Health Organization said Israel attacked its facilities amid expanding ground operations. The civil defense agency has accused Israeli forces of killing Gaza residents on a daily basis during the gruelling 21-month war that has seen tens of thousands killed and many more displaced. Agency spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP that Israeli strikes on the Al-Shati camp west of Gaza City killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50. Most of Gaza's population has been displaced at least once during the war and the Al-Shati camp – on the Mediterranean coast – hosts thousands of people displaced from the north in tents and makeshift shelters. Raed Bakr, 30, lives with his three children and said he heard "a massive explosion" at about 1:40 a.m. on Tuesday, which blew their tent away. "I felt like I was in a nightmare. Fire, dust, smoke and body parts flying through the air, dirt everywhere. The children were screaming," Bakr, whose wife was killed last year, told AFP. Reports of the latest death toll came as the Roman Catholic church's most senior cleric in the Holy Land said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "morally unacceptable." "We have seen men holding out in the sun for hours in the hope of a simple meal," Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa told a news conference in Jerusalem after visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory. New ground operations His visit came after an Israeli army strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza killed three people last week, prompting Pope Leo XIV to condemn the "barbarity" of the war and the blind "use of force." The World Health Organization too sharply criticised the Israeli military. The U.N. agency's chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accused soldiers of entering its staff residence, and forcing women and children to evacuate, as they handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint. The latest criticism of Israel came as its ground forces expanded ground operations in Deir al-Balah following intense shelling of the area in central Gaza on Monday. The Israeli military had earlier ordered residents to leave, warning of imminent action in an area where it had not previously operated. The civil defence agency's Bassal said two people were killed in Deir el-Balah. The Israeli military later said in a statement published Tuesday that its troops "identified shots being fired toward them in the Deir al-Balah area, and responded toward the area from which the shooting originated." "The [army] will not refrain from operating in areas where terrorist activity threatens the security of the State of Israel," the military added. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were living in the area, which until now had been considered relatively safe. Some 30,000 were living in displacement sites. AFP footage from central Gaza showed a large plume of smoke rising over Deir al-Balah on Tuesday while a surveillance drone was heard buzzing overhead. OCHA said nearly 88 percent of the entire Gaza Strip was now either under evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones, forcing the population of 2.4 million into an ever-shrinking space.
