Food security group warns Israeli blockade raises famine threat in Gaza
May 12 (UPI) -- Gaza is under the threat of widespread famine as nearly 500,000 Palestinians are facing catastrophic food insecurity, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported on Monday.
About 96% of the population in the Gaza strip is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, classified as Phase 4, the organization says. About 22% are classified as facing catastrophic acute food insecurity -- Phase 5 -- which is described as "an extreme lack of food, starvation and exhaustion of coping capacities."
"Goods indispensable for people's survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks," the organization said, according to the United Nations. "The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity. In a scenario of a protracted and large-scale military operation and continuation of the humanitarian and commercial blockade, there would be a critical lack of access to supplies and services that are essential to survival."
This comes two months after Israel instituted a total blockade of Gaza, cutting off humanitarian aid.
The United States has thrown its support behind a plan to deliver private aid to Gaza, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Friday. He did not say when aid will begin to arrive.
"It is going to require the partnership not only of governments but of [non-government organizations], charitable organizations and nonprofits from around the world," Huckabee said.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification shared skepticism of the plan for Israel to distribute aid into Gaza, citing "significant access barriers for large segments of the population." It adds that the proposal is highly insufficient.
The organization warns that the Gaza Strip is likely to fall into a Phase 5 risk of famine by the end of September if Israel's large-scale military operation continues.
"The latest announcements suggest that this worst-case scenario is becoming more likely," the IPC's report says.
U.N. High Commissioner for Humanitarian Rights Volker Turk echoed IPC's skepticism of Israel's plan. Turk said in a statement that it threatens the existence of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"This would only compound the misery and suffering inflicted by the complete blockade on the entry of basic goods for almost nine weeks now," Turk said in a statement. "Gaza's residents have already been deprived of all lifesaving necessities, particularly food, with relentless Israeli attacks on community kitchens and those trying to maintain a minimum of law and order. Any use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war constitutes a war crime."
Israel's bombardment of Gaza continued throughout the weekend into Monday. A school for Palestinian refugees, operated by the United Nations, was struck in the attacks on Saturday. Four people were killed in a bombing at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency facility in North Gaza on Friday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports 52,862 Palestinians have been killed and 119,648 have been injured in the conflict.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
27 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Iran Threatens Israel's Nuclear Sites as Trump Blocks Strike Plan
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Iran has threatened to strike Israel's nuclear facilities if attacked, claiming it has gathered extensive intelligence on them. The warning comes as U.S. President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 40-minute call that a military strike on Iran "must be taken off the table for now," according to Israeli state media. The exchange highlights widening tensions between the U.S. and Israel, with Netanyahu pushing for a tougher stance while Trump presses for diplomacy—even as he acknowledged Iran's "much more aggressive" behavior. Newsweek has reached out to the State Department as well as the foreign ministries of Iran and Israel for comment. Why It Matters Iran's warning signals a heightened risk of regional conflict involving nuclear infrastructure. For the U.S., which is engaged in delicate nuclear talks with Tehran, the threat complicates its effort to balance deterrence with diplomacy. Israel's concern over Iranian intentions—driven by Tehran's expanding nuclear activity—puts added pressure on the Trump administration's strategy. As Iran moves to leverage intelligence gathered on Israeli facilities, and the U.S. refrains from endorsing military escalation, the situation threatens to widen the gulf between allies and embolden hardliners in both countries. Military personnel parade on National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, on April 18, 2025. Military personnel parade on National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, on April 18, To Know Iran's Supreme National Security Council said that Iranian intelligence services had obtained "a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents" related to Israel's nuclear infrastructure. The council claimed this intelligence had completed an "operational cycle" enabling Iran's armed forces to target Israeli nuclear sites in response to any Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The council warned that "any act of evil against [Iran's] economic and military infrastructure" would result in a "precise and proportionate response." Diplomacy With Tehran On Tuesday, during a call with Netanyahu, Trump emphasized his preference for diplomacy, saying the U.S. had submitted a "reasonable proposal" to Iran and was expecting a response soon. He noted that Iran had become more aggressive in recent negotiations, but talks were ongoing. Netanyahu countered by calling the negotiations futile, accusing Iran of playing for time and urging that a "credible military threat" remain on the table. Trump rejected this stance, insisting that a military strike on Iran "must be taken off the table for now." When Netanyahu sought clarity on whether the U.S. would approve Israeli action if necessary, Trump did not provide a definitive answer. The conversation ended without any breakthrough on Israel's demands, according to Israel's Channel 12 and public broadcaster Kan. President Donald Trump is seen in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2025. President Donald Trump is seen in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 10, Progress Meanwhile, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the talks with Iran were making some progress despite recent setbacks. She emphasized that negotiations are dynamic, adding that "it would appear that things are moving forward," though not dramatically. She confirmed that another round of talks is expected soon. What People Are Saying Iran's Supreme National Security Council: "These sites would be attacked in response to any Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure." U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce: "It is a dynamic, as it would be with any diplomatic consideration, that negotiations are meant to move things forward and the good news is, is that, in fact, it would appear that things are moving forward, and that's what we all want." What Happens Next Iran is expected to respond to a new U.S. proposal at an upcoming sixth round of nuclear talks, with the location still unconfirmed after earlier sessions in Oman and Italy. Despite mediation efforts, Washington and Tehran remain divided over uranium enrichment—Trump demanding a full halt, while Iran insists on its right to peaceful nuclear energy. With tensions rising and a counterproposal pending from Tehran, the gap between diplomacy and confrontation appears increasingly difficult to bridge.
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Capital Jewish Museum's LGBTJews Exhibit is About Pride and Preservation
Leaders of Jewish institutions rarely need a reminder that antisemitism, like other forms of discrimination, still exist. But when Washington, D.C.'s Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum launched its new exhibition, "LGBTJews in the Federal City," in May, they had no idea that a deadly attack would unfold on their doorstep. On May 21, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, two Israeli embassy staffers attending an event at the museum, were shot and killed. The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 31, allegedly told police as he was apprehended: "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza." In contrast, Lischinsky and Milgrim were at the museum to attend an annual interfaith event held by the American Jewish Committee for young people in diplomatic service, to promote peace and understanding despite differences of beliefs and opinions, specifically focused on humanitarian diplomacy. Rodriguez was charged the following day with murder of foreign officials, amongst other serious federal offenses. "Such acts of terror attempt to instill fear, silence voices and erase history—but we refuse to let them succeed," Dr. Beatrice Gurwitz, executive director of the museum, said in a statement after the shooting. "The Capital Jewish Museum was built to tell the centuries-old story of the greater Washington region's vibrant Jewish community. We are proud to tell these stories of Jewish life. In our work, we share Jewish stories in the service of building bridges and opening dialogue in our beautiful city." Building those kinds of bridges is what the museum is especially proud of, and what its new exhibit represents. Shortly before the killings, Newsweek spoke with Gurwitz in conjunction with WorldPride 2025 for a previously planned story about the new exhibit. While the quotes in this story are from before the shooting, the tone of "LGBTJews in the Federal City" reinforces Gurwitz's sentiment about the importance of resisting fear and not being silenced, and is consistent with how they addressed the attack afterward. "There's going to be debate and disagreement embedded in [what to exhibit]," Gurwitz told Newsweek. "And then the other thing that we take seriously as an institution is doing our best to capture those debates right. There is never one opinion. There is never one approach. And I think that we have a responsibility to not only document Jewish political engagement, but also showcase the ways that people have come at it from diverse perspectives over time." And for much of these debates, no matter the issue, it's the backdrop of Washington, D.C., that gives it its weight and national implications, said Jonathan Edelman, collections curator. "No matter what city people were living in when they fought for their rights, people gathered in Washington." Jewish Allies march in the DC pride parade, 1990s. Jewish Allies march in the DC pride parade, 1990s. Gift of Bet Mishpachah with thanks to Joel Wind & Al Munzer, Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection Telling a Complicated History "I feel like my whole curatorial practice for the last 30 years has been leading to this moment," Sarah Leavitt, director of curatorial affairs for the Capital Jewish Museum, told Newsweek. "I think, increasingly, stakes are really high and it's really on us as museum professionals to really be doing part of that work to tell America's story in a much more complicated way. And that includes to tell, in our case, a local Jewish story in a complicated way." The exhibit—with hundreds of artifacts provided by the community, a large portion of which came from the local LGBTQ+ Bet Mishpachah synagogue—maps LGBTQ+ history and its intersection with Jewish history in Washington, D.C., through images, archival protest campaign posters, Washington Blade archives, a panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and oral histories produced with the Rainbow History Project. "A big part of this exhibition and this collecting effort is to capture more of this history, especially LGBTQ history, which has either been erased intentionally by people trying to protect themselves, or by people who don't believe that history should be preserved," Edelman said. As a recent transplant to D.C. while in graduate school, he found that "in every aspect of the Jewish community, there were large amounts of out LGBTQ people," unlike where he grew up in the Midwest. "I want everyone to see themselves in this exhibit and see that LGBTQ history is Jewish history." As an intern at the museum in 2019, he had the germ of an idea which has now flourished into this exhibit. The collection puts particular emphasis on two key aspects of queer life in Washington, D.C.: the Lavender Scare moral panic from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s and the AIDS epidemic in the '80s and early '90s, as well as the impact it had on recent LGBTQ+ history in D.C. and the Jewish community. A photograph of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky is displayed outside the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. A photograph of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky is displayed outside the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty 'What Happens Here Matters' "Washington has a specific story with the Lavender Scare—the purge of homosexuals from the federal government, which we're kind of seeing again right now. This is not a new story," Edelman said. During the height of the anti-Communist movement of the mid-20th century, thousands of queer federal employees were either fired or forced to resign because of their sexual orientation. One of these fired workers, Frank Kameny, became an influential activist in the gay rights movement. He would go on to form the influential Mattachine Society of Washington in 1960 and, in 1965, organized protests outside the White House advocating for gay rights and the reinstatement of federal works. The story of Kameny, a Jewish man, is one of the many told about this period. "To me, it's so important that my generation understands what people before us had to go through and what they fought for beyond the story of Stonewall, beyond Harvey Milk," Edelman said. "Washington was such an epicenter in its own way and had its own unique aspects." While the exhibit does focus on D.C., it's the national implication these stories have that's most salient, despite rarely getting the attention better-known people and events in queer history do, like the 1969 Stonewall riots, an uprising after repeated police brutality against LGBTQ+ people; or Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S. who was assassinated in 1978. "D.C. has such important national resonance. And I think maybe, the rest of the country ignores that at their peril," Leavitt said. "What happens here matters for real. And the work that happens in the federal government every day, it matters. And again, that's not always a march toward justice. I mean, a lot of terrible things have happened at the federal level as well. But it's not just Frank Kameny, who we know devoted his entire life and career to opening up the federal government to gay workers, but there are so many other people as well who are marching with him." "This exhibition is so much more than the sum of its parts because it really helps emphasize why D.C. was such an important place for the LGBTQ movement and how that change rippled out across the country," Gurwitz said. "You see how the emergence of gay culture in D.C., the particular threats to gay people in D.C., help mobilize all of the different kinds of change that happened in D.C., which then has a national impact." Exhibition space at the Captial Jewish Museum Exhibition space at the Captial Jewish Museum Capital Jewish Museum The Sheer Scope Unsurprisingly, given its significance as a turning point for the movement, the exhibit also focuses on the AIDS epidemic. "When you look at the AIDS crisis, this is something that people in our generation, some people know about, but a lot of people don't," Edelman said. "I sat in this home with this one [older] man, where he was flipping through pages of photographs from the 1996 display of the AIDS quilt on the National Mall. And there were a lot of pictures of specific quilt patches, not just the big, broad photos. And I asked him why he took all of these, and he said, 'These are all my friends and former lovers who I lost.' It was dozens of people. And I don't think we understand the scope of that." One thing the trauma of the AIDS epidemic did do was force institutions to reevaluate how LGBTQ+ people are seen. One way this manifested was a critical debate about the inclusion of gay victims of the Holocaust in Jewish institutions during this era. "There was a movement in the 1980s to make sure that the Holocaust Museum tell[s] the story of non-Jewish gay victims of the Holocaust," Gurwitz said. "There were Jewish advocates advocating to tell these stories and ultimately Elie Wiesel wrote a letter and said you have to tell these stories. This needs to be part of it. I think that is such an important testament to the importance of our cultural institutions in sharing history in a way that shapes our understanding of the past." In 1989, Wiesel, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and Holocaust survivor, was awarded the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights organization. At the ceremony, Wiesel said: "Those who hate you hate me. Bigots do not stop at classes, at races, or at lesbians and gays. Those who hate, hate everybody." The Holocaust Museum in D.C. opened on April 26, 1993, a day after the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. And the stories of homosexual victims of the Holocaust were included. US President Barack Obama hands to gay rights activist Frank Kameny a pen which he used to sign a presidential memorandum regarding federal benefits and non-discrimination June 17, 2009 in the Oval Office of the... US President Barack Obama hands to gay rights activist Frank Kameny a pen which he used to sign a presidential memorandum regarding federal benefits and non-discrimination June 17, 2009 in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. More MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty A Blessing of Memories "I think it resonates so deeply because it's recent history," Gurwitz said about most of the LGBTQ+ history on display at the exhibition. "And it is significant change over time. We can all find moments that we remember, that trigger our own experiences and allow us to see that we have been part of this evolution. So, I think it is actually tremendously moving for people who come in the door." "The rich and interesting and pulls in local context, national context, international context, Jewish stories, non-Jewish stories. There is so much to engage with and to learn that even people who feel like they know this history will have something to learn in this exhibition, and that's extraordinarily gratifying." It's the context of these stories being told through the prism of diverse perspectives that makes "LGBTJews in the Federal City" particularly poignant after the events of May 21. "May their memory be a blessing" is a traditional Jewish expression of condolence after someone dies. Capturing those memories, the lives lived and tragically cut short, like Lischinsky and Milgrim, are what make the work of institutions like the Capital Jewish Museum vital. As Leavitt said about the exhibit before the shooting, she hopes the exhibition is "one way for people to see their story, whatever their identity is." LGBTJews in the Federal City will be on exhibit until January 4, 2026.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Israel's Smotrich could collapse Palestinian economy by ending bank waiver
Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has cancelled a waiver that Palestinian banks rely on to operate hours after five Western governments announced he faced sanctions, along with fellow ultra-nationalist Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for inciting violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Warnings have previously been raised that Israel's ending of the waiver could have devastating consequences for the Palestinian economy, which is dependent on the Israeli banking system as the Palestinian Authority (PA) does not have its own central bank or currency. 'Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has instructed Accountant General CPA Yali Rothenberg to cancel the indemnity provided to correspondent banks dealing with banks operating in Palestinian Authority territories,' Smotrich's office said in a statement on Tuesday, announcing the changes. The statement also directly linked Smotrich's decision to the PA's international advocacy against the establishment of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, which the minister's office described as the 'delegitimisation campaign against the State of Israel internationally'. Smotrich's decision to end the waiver came hours after Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom announced sanctions against him, as well as against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for their 'incitement of violence' against sanctions were not publicly linked to Smotrich's targeting of the PA, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank and represents Palestine at international forums, including the United Nations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). However, Smotrich has a history of blaming the PA and punishing the 2.7 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for international condemnation of Israel's illegal occupation. 'For every country that unilaterally recognises a Palestinian state, we will establish a settlement,' Smotrich said in July 2024, as he announced that Israel was 'recognising' five illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank after five more countries – Norway, Spain, Ireland, Armenia and Slovenia – announced they were recognising Palestinian statehood. He has also called for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank if the ICJ ruled that Israeli settlements are end of the waiver could have a devastating impact on the finances of Palestinians, particularly in the occupied West Bank, which has already suffered multiple economic blows over the past two years. The overwhelming majority of exchanges in the West Bank and Gaza are in shekels, Israel's national currency, because Palestine is not allowed to have its own central bank or print its own currency, which means that Palestinian banks are reliant on Israeli banks to operate. But Israeli banks only continue to work with the Palestinian banks because of the government waiver, which protects them from potential legal action relating to transactions with their Palestinian counterparts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has repeatedly threatened to end the waiver in the past, prompting rebukes from even Israel's closest allies. Janet Yellen, the United States Treasury Secretary in former President Joe Biden's administration, warned in May last year that 'to cut Palestinian banks from Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis'. In July, G7 countries urged Israel to 'take necessary action' to ensure the continuity of Palestinian financial systems. The UN has also warned that 'unilaterally cutting off Palestinian banks from the global banking system would be a violation of the fundamental principles of international law'. Under this pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to extend the waiver for short periods. However, far-right ministers like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have always objected. After one vote in November last year, Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted in Israeli courts of possessing a 'terror' organisation's propaganda material and supporting a 'terror' organisation, wrote in a post on X that he had a 'principled objection' to indemnifying the Israeli banks. The Palestinian Authority should be completely cut off and 'collapsed', he said.
