More than 100 aid groups warn 'mass starvation' spreading across Gaza
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than two million people have endured 21 months of devastating conflict.
Even after Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade in late May, Gaza's population is still suffering extreme scarcities of food and other essentials, with residents frequently killed as they try to collect aid at a handful of distribution points.
In a statement, the 111 signatories -- including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam -- warned that "our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away".
"As the Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families," the statement read.
The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.
The UN on Tuesday said Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May -- effectively sidelining the existing UN-led system.
Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.
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'Hope and heartbreak'
In their statement, the humanitarian organisations said that warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from accessing or delivering the goods.
"Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions," the signatories said.
"It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage," they added.
"The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the "horror" facing Palestinians in Gaza under Israeli military attack is unprecedented in recent years.
More than two dozen Western countries recently urged an immediate end to the war, saying suffering in Gaza had "reached new depths".
The aid organisations urged decisive action from governments, saying that "piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures... serve as a smokescreen for inaction".
Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,106 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The head of Gaza's largest hospital on Tuesday said 21 children had died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days.
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France 24
7 hours ago
- France 24
'Worst-case scenario of famine' under way in Gaza, say UN-backed experts
The 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,' the leading international authority on food crises said in a new alert Tuesday, predicting 'widespread death' without immediate action. The alert, still short of a formal famine declaration, follows an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war. On Tuesday the UN's World Food Programme said the mass starvation in the Palestinian enclave was reminiscent of the famines in Ethiopia and Biafra in the 20th century. "This is unlike anything we have seen in this century. It reminds us of previous disasters in Ethiopia or Biafra in the past century," WFP emergency director Ross Smith told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Rome, insisting that "we need urgent action now". The international pressure led Israel over the weekend to announce measures, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and airdrops. The United Nations and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm and unload delivery trucks before they can reach their destinations. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have 'dramatically worsened' the situation, including 'increasingly stringent blockades' by Israel. A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza and mobility within has largely denied. The IPC has only declared famine a few times – in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan's western Darfur region last year. But independent experts say they don't need a formal declaration to know what they're seeing in Gaza. 'Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she's familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza's symptoms. This is famine,' Alex de Waal, author of 'Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine' and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, told The Associated Press. An area is classified as in famine when all three of the following conditions are confirmed: At least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving. At least 30% of children six months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they're too thin for their height. And at least two people or four children under 5 per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. The report is based on available information through July 25 and says the crisis has reached 'an alarming and deadly turning point.' It says data indicate that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza – at its lowest level since the war began – and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City. The report says nearly 17 out of every 100 children under the age of 5 in Gaza City are acutely malnourished. Gaza: 'It's an engineered starvation campaign against civilians, women and children' (Oxfam) 08:50 Mounting evidence shows 'widespread starvation". Essential health and other services have collapsed. One in three people in Gaza is going without food for days at a time, according to the World Food Program. Hospitals report a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths in children under 5. Gaza's population of over 2 million has been squeezed into increasingly tiny areas of the devastated territory. The IPC's latest analysis in May warned that Gaza will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn't lift its blockade and stop its military campaign. Its new alert calls for immediate and large-scale action and warns: 'Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the Strip.' Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages. Israel eased those restrictions in May but also pushed ahead with a new US-backed aid delivery system that has been wracked by chaos and violence. The traditional, UN-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds swarm entering convoys. While Israel says there's no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza, UN agencies and aid groups say even the latest humanitarian measures are not enough to counter the worsening starvation. In a statement Monday, Doctors Without Borders called the new airdrops ineffective and dangerous, saying they deliver less aid than trucks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said no one is starving in Gaza and that Israel has supplied enough aid throughout the war, 'otherwise, there would be no Gazans". Israel's military on Monday criticised what it calls 'false claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza". Israel's closest ally now appears to disagree. 'Those children look very hungry,' President Donald Trump said Monday of the images from Gaza in recent days.
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
WHO says malnutrition reaching 'alarming levels' in Gaza
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Local France
3 days ago
- Local France
French left urges Macron to act over US plan to destroy contraceptives
A State Department spokesperson told AFP this week that "a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain" birth control products from "terminated Biden-era USAID contracts." The US Agency for International Development, the country's foreign aid arm, was dismantled by Donald Trump's administration when he returned to office in January, replacing former president Joe Biden. Under the plan, some $9.7 million worth of implant and IUD contraceptives stored in Belgium are reportedly set to be incinerated in France. An open letter signed by French Green leader Marine Tondelier and several female lawmakers called the US decision "an affront to the fundamental principles of solidarity, public health and sexual and reproductive rights that France is committed to defending." In the letter, they urged the French president "not to be complicit, even indirectly, in retrograde policies," saying women's contraception products such as IUDs and implants were intended for "low- and middle-income countries." "Cutting aid for contraception is shameful, destroying products that have already been manufactured and financed is even more mind-boggling," Tondelier told AFP. The Greens urged Macron to request the suspension of the plan "as part of a joint initiative with the European Commission." They also called on him to back humanitarian organisations that say they are ready to redistribute the contraception products. Separately, Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party, also urged Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to take action. "You have a responsibility to act to prevent this destruction, which will cost lives," she said on X. Advertisement "These resources are vital, particularly for the 218 million women who do not have access to contraceptive care." The US plan has sparked outrage from global health NGOs, with Doctors Without Borders denouncing the "callous waste." "It is unconscionable to think of these health products being burned when the demand for them globally is so great," said Rachel Milkovich of the medical charity's US office. The State Department spokesperson said the destruction will cost $167,000 and "no HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed." Doctors Without Borders says that other organisations have offered to cover the shipping and distribution costs of the supplies, but the US government declined to sign off. US lawmakers have approved slashing some $9 billion in aid primarily destined for foreign countries.
