Video: WHO chief says 2.1 million people face starvation in Gaza
The Director-General of the World Health Organisation has warned more than two million people in Gaza are facing starvation, as deaths from malnutrition surge. His comments come as Israel continues to prevent aid supplies, including baby formula, from reaching the enclave.
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Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
‘Local sports champion': Palestinian boy, 17, dies of starvation in Gaza
A Palestinian teenager with no previous health conditions has starved to death in Gaza after being hospitalised, medical officials and relatives say, as people in the besieged enclave desperately struggle to find food amid Israel's continued blockade on aid. Atef Abu Khater, 17, died on Saturday, a source at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City told Al Jazeera. His weight had dropped from 70kg (154lbs) to just 25kg (55lbs) when he died, his family said – roughly what a nine-year-old child should weigh. 'We hear from his family members and others who knew him that he used to be a local sports champion. He ended up losing a lot of weight, becoming acutely malnourished, and ultimately dying,' Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City. 'He was one of thousands of severe malnutrition cases throughout Gaza.' Footage shared online and verified by Al Jazeera showed Abu Khater's relatives saying goodbye. In it, the boy's emaciated body could be seen in an open white body bag, his face turned away from the camera. His cheekbones protruded in the absence of any fat, giving him a gaunt appearance. A relative could be seen running his finger along each bone on the boy's ribcage, which is clearly visible due to malnutrition. Journalist Wisam Shabat, who posted the video on his Instagram account, said Abu Khater arrived at the hospital in a very critical condition, suffering from severe complications due to lack of food and medical care, before he passed away. The 17-year-old is among at least seven Palestinians who have died of malnutrition in the past 24 hours across Gaza, the director of al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera. At least 169 Palestinians, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the territory since Israel's war began in October 2023, according to the latest Gaza Health Ministry figures. UN and other humanitarian officials say Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries, though partially lifted in recent days, have left Palestinians starving and struggling to find enough food to feed their families. Amid growing international condemnation of the crisis, Israel has said it is increasing aid deliveries to Palestinians, including via airdrops. But humanitarian groups say airdrops are dangerous and inefficient, and they have called on Israel to open up all the crossings into Gaza to allow assistance to flow freely to Palestinians in need. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Saturday that 'the manmade famine in Gaza has been largely shaped by the deliberate attempts to replace' UN aid systems with a contentious, US and Israeli-backed group called the GHF. Israeli forces have routinely fired on Palestinians trying to get food at GHF-run distribution sites in Gaza, and the UN reported this week that more than 1,300 aid seekers have been killed since the group began operating in May. Lazzarini also accused Israel of actively preventing the UN and other humanitarian groups from delivering lifesaving aid to Palestinians, in what he described as 'a deliberate measure to collectively pressure and punish Palestinians for living in Gaza'. 'No time to waste anymore, a political decision must be made to unconditionally open the crossings', the UNRWA chief said in a post on X. Children 'dying slowly' Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian families continue to search for food and other desperately needed supplies across Gaza. Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary said dozens of people, including infants, are 'dying slowly due to forced starvation by Israel'. 'One of them is Misk al-Madhoun, a malnourished five-year-old whose parents have no way of feeding her. They say they are seeing her dying slowly every single day,' said Khoudary, adding that parents are doing all they possibly can for their children. 'We've met with mothers who are giving their babies water instead of milk because they do not have any other option,' she said. 'We're also still seeing Palestinian parents walking very long distances in the heat daily to look for any hot meal kitchen or distribution point. Even if they go to the GHF sites, they risk being killed, wounded or coming home empty-handed.' On Tuesday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, warned that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' was unfolding in Gaza. 'Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,' it said in a report. 'Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.'
Al Jazeera
12 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
One in three Palestinians in Gaza going days without food, UNICEF says
Gaza faces a grave risk of famine, with one in three people going days without food, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned. UNICEF on Friday urged the international community to act swiftly as conditions continue to deteriorate due to Israel's genocidal war. 'Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition,' Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations, said in a statement on Friday following a recent trip to Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank. He said the malnutrition indicator in Gaza has 'exceeded the famine threshold'. 'Today, I want to keep the focus on Gaza, because it's in Gaza where the suffering is most acute and where children are dying at an unprecedented rate,' he said. 'We are at a crossroads, and the choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die.' On Saturday, Atef Abu Khater, a 17-year-old Palestinian, died of malnutrition, a medical source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera. Earlier this week, Khater, who had been in good health before the war in Gaza, was hospitalised in intensive care, according to media reports, which quoted his father as saying he was no longer responding to treatment. Since October 7, 2023, Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 60,000 Palestinians, more than 18,000 of them children. Many more remain buried under the rubble, most presumed dead. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, the number of deaths from starvation in the territory stands at 162, including 92 children. 'Engineered Israeli genocidal chaos' Ahmed al-Najjar, a journalist and resident of Gaza who is sheltering in Khan Younis, says Palestinians in the besieged territory are faced with 'tragedy and torment' amid Israeli bombardment, forced starvation and a complete feeling of insecurity. 'With the cats away, the mice will play – except that it's not just a mouse, but an engineered Israeli genocidal chaos,' he told Al Jazeera, stressing that safety is 'nowhere to be found' in Gaza. 'We are not just referring to the fact of constant fear of the Israeli bombs being dropped on our heads, but the fact that there is a total security and power vacuum that leaves us here unsure and uncertain of our own safety,' al-Najjar said. He described that even walking in the street and going to buy a bag of flour or some other basic necessity makes people feel uncertain whether they will be able to return home safely. 'There is not any sort of presence of police or security forces in the streets; we've been seeing the continuous and systematic targeting of the police forces inside these 'safe zones' here.' In March, Israel blocked food aid from entering Gaza. It eased the blockade in late May, after which the controversial Israel- and United States-backed GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza. But GHF has been accused of grave rights violations and the targeting of civilians. The UN says more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food from the GHF's aid hubs. Many have been purposefully shot by Israeli soldiers or US security contractors hired by GHF, according to testimonies from whistleblowers published in the media. With starvation across the Strip spreading, international outcry over images of emaciated children and increasing reports of hunger-related deaths pressured Israel to let more aid into the Gaza Strip earlier this week. The Israeli military last week began a daily 'tactical pause' of its military operations in parts of Gaza and established new aid corridors. US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, also travelled to Gaza on Friday to inspect the GHF aid distribution site, together with Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel. The diplomats 'spent over five hours inside Gaza', Witkoff said in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a distribution site. He added that the purpose of the trip was to 'help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza'. Meanwhile, several Western and Arab governments began carrying out aid airdrops in Gaza earlier this week, to feed more than two million inhabitants. But aid agencies have said they are deeply sceptical that airdrops could deliver enough food safely to tackle a deepening hunger crisis in Gaza. 'Look, at this stage, every modality needs to be used, every gate, every route, every modality, but airdrops cannot replace the volume and the scale that convoys by road can achieve,' Chaiban said, adding that allowing about 500 humanitarian and commercial aid trucks into Gaza is important. He also noted that what is happening on the ground is 'inhumane' and stressed that 'what children in Gaza need from all communities is a sustained ceasefire and a political way forward.'
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Israel ‘engineering massacres' as more Palestinians starve to death in Gaza
Israel is 'engineering chaos and massacres' in the Gaza Strip by continuing to block aid deliveries and opening fire on starving Palestinians seeking desperately needed food supplies, a humanitarian official has warned. Caroline Willemen, Gaza project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera on Friday that food remains 'critically scarce' in the besieged enclave despite the increased entry of aid in recent days. 'There is little indication that sufficient aid will arrive consistently,' Willemen said. 'As a result, every day, people risk their lives in a desperate search for food.' The Gaza Health Ministry said on Friday that three more people, including two children, died of hunger and malnutrition in the previous 24 hours. That pushed the total number of starvation-related deaths to 162, including 92 children, since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023. More than 80 Palestinians were also killed in Israeli strikes across the Strip on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Of those, 49 people were killed and more than 270 others were wounded while seeking aid, the sources said. Condemnation of Israel's starvation policy in Gaza has grown this week, with a global hunger monitoring system warning on Tuesday that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' was unfolding. While Israel has authorised a series of aid airdrops in recent days, top United Nations officials have denounced the scheme as expensive and dangerous while urging Israel to allow unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,' Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), wrote on X. 'As the people of #Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance.' Olga Cherevko, an official with the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA), also told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza that while there has been a slight increase in aid being allowed in, it is still grossly insufficient. 'The slight increase in what is coming in is not nearly enough to even scratch the surface,' she said. 'The needs on the ground are overwhelming.' 'Deadly incidents a daily reality' Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza continue to risk their lives by seeking aid at notorious sites run by the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF. Ibrahim Mekki, a Palestinian man from Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said he waited at least six hours and risked being shot by Israeli forces just to end up with a few bags of pasta. 'It's a trap, a game,' he told Al Jazeera. 'Letting you move a little, then opening fire.' The UN's human rights office reported that at least 1,373 aid seekers have been killed in Gaza since May, when the GHF began operating in the enclave. Of those, 859 people were killed near GHF-run aid sites and 514 were killed while waiting along food convoy routes, the office said. 'Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,' it added. MSF's Willemen also recounted a harrowing incident from earlier this week, when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians attempting to reach aid trucks near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza. 'People were wounded in the gunfire and in the crush as crowds panicked and ran,' she said. 'These deadly incidents have become a daily reality in Gaza for too long now. The current methods of distribution are engineering chaos and massacres.' Still, Israel and its top ally, the US, have continued to support GHF despite the killings and growing global criticism of the group's operations in Gaza. US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, also visited the enclave on Friday alongside US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to 'assess conditions' and engage with GHF. Witkoff said the trip aimed to help 'craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza'. The Trump administration announced last month that it approved $30m to support GHF's operations. The US provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel annually, as well as diplomatic backing at the UN – assistance that has increased significantly since the start of the war on Gaza.
