Turn Gaza pause for aid into a ceasefire
Up until now, Israel cited the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — backed by the US and Israel — to gloss over the hunger crisis, which, some western experts believe, now approaches textbook famine conditions. Sniper attacks on aid queues killing over 800 persons and reports of over a hundred deaths — many of them young children with emaciated bodies and bellies distended from malnutrition — have shocked the global community. Despite this, Israel blocked aid even as the World Food Programme claimed 90,000 women and children needed urgent treatment for malnutrition, and the World Health Organization warned that nearly one in five children under the age of five in Gaza City now suffers from acute malnutrition — tripling from just a month ago.
The pause in the war has come after strong condemnation from Israel's many friends in the West — last Monday, the UK and 27 other nations issued a statement, censuring Israel's actions. The UN and aid organisations estimate the aid Israel has allowed to reach Gazans is just a trickle and won't avert a famine. Close to 60,000 Palestinians have died in the 22-month war, which at times threatened to engulf the whole of West Asia. Multiple attempts at peace have failed owing to the intransigence of Tel Aviv or Hamas, or both. It is time the international community asks Tel Aviv to turn the tactical pauses into a permanent ceasefire.
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News18
an hour ago
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an hour ago
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