Gaza Rescuers Say 46 Killed As UN Slams US-backed Aid System
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed another 46 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday as rights groups and UN agencies slammed the US-backed food distribution system.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.
"Every day we face this scenario: martyrs, injuries, in unbearable numbers," paramedic Ziad Farhat told AFP at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.
"Hospitals cannot accommodate the number of casualties arriving," he said.
The latest deaths came as Israel's opposition leader and the families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to widen a ceasefire with Iran to include the Palestinian territory.
Pressure also grew on the US- and Israeli-backed privately run aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May to replace United Nations agencies.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called the system an "abomination" while a spokesman for the UN human rights office, Thameen Al-Kheetan, condemned the "weaponisation of food" in Gaza.
According to figures issued on Tuesday by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 516 people have been killed and nearly 3,800 wounded by Israeli fire while seeking rations since late May.
The territory of more than two million people is suffering from famine-like conditions after Israel blocked all supplies from early March to the end of May and continues to impose restrictions, according to human rights groups.
The Israeli military said the reports of deaths near the Netzarim corridor were "under review."
Gaza civil defence spokesman Bassal reported a first deadly shooting "with bullets and tank shells" near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza where thousands of Palestinians gather each night for rations from a nearby GHF distribution point.
The Israeli military later said that a crowd had been identified in an area "adjacent" to its troops.
Witness Ribhi Al-Qassas told AFP that troops had "opened fire randomly" at a crowd he estimated at 50,000 people.
The second incident took place in south Gaza about two kilometres from another GHF centre in Rafah governorate, Bassal said.
"Israeli forces targeted civilian gatherings near Al-Alam and Al-Shakoush areas with bullets and tank shells", he told AFP.
Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and witnesses in the Palestinian territory.
"The weaponisation of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime," UN human rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in Geneva.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
In a statement on Saturday, GHF said it was "delivering aid at scale, securely and effectively", but it acknowledged it "cannot meet the full scale of need while large parts of Gaza remain closed".
GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points.
On Monday, more than a dozen human rights organisations called on GHF to cease its operations, warning of possible complicity in war crimes.
After Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday after a 12-day war, Netayahu faced renewed calls to agree a ceasefire with Hamas after more than 20 months of war in Gaza.
"And now Gaza. It's time to finish it there too. Bring back the hostages, end the war," opposition leader Yair Lapid of the centre-right Yesh Atid party wrote on X.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's war against Iran was "contributing to the successes in Gaza, but it will still take a bit more time".
The October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,077 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable. Mourners cry during a funeral of a person killed while attempting to get aid at a distribution point AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Int'l Business Times
a day ago
- Int'l Business Times
Thai Cannabis Stores Fret As Government Moves To Tighten Rules On Sales
Thai cannabis store owners and activists on Thursday hit out at new government plans to tighten the rules on selling the drug by requiring a doctor's approval, three years after it was decriminalised. The kingdom was the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalise the drug when it removed cannabis from the list of banned narcotics in June 2022. The intention was to allow sales for medical rather than recreational use, but the move led to hundreds of cannabis "dispensaries" springing up around the country, particularly in Bangkok. While the relaxation has proved popular with some tourists, there are concerns that the trade is under-regulated. Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin signed an order late on Tuesday requiring an on-site doctor to approve sales for medical reasons. The rule would only come into force once it is published in the official Royal Gazette. It is not clear when this would happen. Thanatat Chotiwong, a long-time cannabis activist and store owner, said it was "not fair" to suddenly change the rules on a sector that was now well established. "This is a fully-fledged industry -- not just growers selling flowers. There are lighting suppliers, construction crews, farmers, soil and fertiliser developers, and serious R&D," he told AFP. "Some of us have invested tens of millions of baht in greenhouses and infrastructure. Then suddenly, the government steps in to shut it all down." Thanatat urged the government instead to "implement proper taxation and regulation -- so this revenue can be returned to society in a meaningful way." The government has made several previous announcements of plans to restrict cannabis, including legislation moved in February last year, but none has come to fruition. The new rules would mean cannabis could only be sold to customers for medical reasons, under the supervision of licensed professionals such as medical doctors, traditional Thai medicine doctors, folk healers or dentists. "It's going to work like this: customers come in, say what symptoms they have, and the doctor decides how many grams of cannabis is appropriate and which strain to prescribe," Kajkanit Sakdisubha, owner of The Dispensary cannabis shop in Bangkok, told AFP. "The choice is no longer up to the customer -- it's not like going to a restaurant and pick your favorite dish from a menu anymore." And he warned that many of the shops that had sprouted since decriminalisation would not be able to adapt to the changes. "The reality is there are too few doctors available. I believe that many entrepreneurs knew regulations were coming, but no one knew when," he said. While waiting for the rules to come into force, The Dispensary is halting cannabis sales as a precaution, store manager Bukoree Make said. "Customers themselves are unsure whether what they're doing is legal. I've been receiving a lot of calls," Poramat Jaikla, the lead seller or "budtender", told AFP. The cannabis move comes as the government led by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra's Pheu Thai party is hanging by a thread after losing its main coalition partner, Bhumjaithai. Though conservative, the Bhumjaithai party has long supported more liberal laws on cannabis. The party quit the coalition this month in a row over a leaked phone call between Paetongtarn and former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
Int'l Business Times
2 days ago
- Int'l Business Times
Child Vaccine Coverage Faltering, Threatening Millions: Study
Efforts to vaccinate children against deadly diseases are faltering across the world due to economic inequality, Covid-era disruptions and misinformation, putting millions of lives at risk, research warned Wednesday. These trends all increase the threat of future outbreaks of preventable diseases, the researchers said, while sweeping foreign aid cuts threaten previous progress in vaccinating the world's children. A new study published in The Lancet journal looked at childhood vaccination rates across 204 countries and territories. It was not all bad news. An immunisation programme by the World Health Organization was estimated to have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the last 50 years. And vaccination coverage against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio and tuberculosis doubled between 1980 and 2023, the international team of researchers found. However the gains slowed in the 2010s, when measles vaccinations decreased in around half of the countries, with the largest drop in Latin America. Meanwhile in more than half of all high-income countries there were declines in coverage for at least one vaccine dose. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Routine vaccination services were hugely disrupted during lockdowns and other measures, resulting in nearly 13 million extra children who never received any vaccine dose between 2020 to 2023, the study said. This disparity endured, particularly in poorer countries. In 2023, more than half of the world's 15.7 million completely unvaccinated children lived in just eight countries, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the study. In the European Union, 10 times more measles cases were recorded last year compared to 2023. In the United States, a measles outbreak surged past 1,000 cases across 30 states last month, which is already more than were recorded in all of 2024. Cases of polio, long eradicated in many areas thanks to vaccination, have been rising in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while Papua New Guinea is currently enduring a polio outbreak. "Routine childhood vaccinations are among the most powerful and cost-effective public health interventions available," said senior study author Jonathan Mosser of the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). "But persistent global inequalities, challenges from the Covid pandemic, and the growth of vaccine misinformation and hesitancy have all contributed to faltering immunisation progress," he said in a statement. In addition, there are "rising numbers of displaced people and growing disparities due to armed conflict, political volatility, economic uncertainty, climate crises," added lead study author Emily Haeuser, also from the IHME. The researchers warned the setbacks could threaten the WHO's goal of having 90 percent of the world's children and adolescents receive essential vaccines by 2030. The WHO also aims to halve the number of children who have received no vaccine doses by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. Just 18 countries have achieved this so far, according to the study, which was funded by the Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccine alliance. The global health community has also been reeling since President Donald Trump's administration drastically slashed US international aid earlier this year. "For the first time in decades, the number of kids dying around the world will likely go up this year instead of down because of massive cuts to foreign aid," Bill Gates said in a separate statement on Tuesday. "That is a tragedy," the Microsoft co-founder said, committing $1.6 billion to Gavi, which is holding a fund-raising summit in Brussels on Wednesday.
Int'l Business Times
3 days ago
- Int'l Business Times
Gaza Rescuers Say 46 Killed As UN Slams US-backed Aid System
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed another 46 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday as rights groups and UN agencies slammed the US-backed food distribution system. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza. "Every day we face this scenario: martyrs, injuries, in unbearable numbers," paramedic Ziad Farhat told AFP at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. "Hospitals cannot accommodate the number of casualties arriving," he said. The latest deaths came as Israel's opposition leader and the families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to widen a ceasefire with Iran to include the Palestinian territory. Pressure also grew on the US- and Israeli-backed privately run aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May to replace United Nations agencies. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called the system an "abomination" while a spokesman for the UN human rights office, Thameen Al-Kheetan, condemned the "weaponisation of food" in Gaza. According to figures issued on Tuesday by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 516 people have been killed and nearly 3,800 wounded by Israeli fire while seeking rations since late May. The territory of more than two million people is suffering from famine-like conditions after Israel blocked all supplies from early March to the end of May and continues to impose restrictions, according to human rights groups. The Israeli military said the reports of deaths near the Netzarim corridor were "under review." Gaza civil defence spokesman Bassal reported a first deadly shooting "with bullets and tank shells" near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza where thousands of Palestinians gather each night for rations from a nearby GHF distribution point. The Israeli military later said that a crowd had been identified in an area "adjacent" to its troops. Witness Ribhi Al-Qassas told AFP that troops had "opened fire randomly" at a crowd he estimated at 50,000 people. The second incident took place in south Gaza about two kilometres from another GHF centre in Rafah governorate, Bassal said. "Israeli forces targeted civilian gatherings near Al-Alam and Al-Shakoush areas with bullets and tank shells", he told AFP. Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and witnesses in the Palestinian territory. "The weaponisation of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime," UN human rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in Geneva. UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives. In a statement on Saturday, GHF said it was "delivering aid at scale, securely and effectively", but it acknowledged it "cannot meet the full scale of need while large parts of Gaza remain closed". GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points. On Monday, more than a dozen human rights organisations called on GHF to cease its operations, warning of possible complicity in war crimes. After Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday after a 12-day war, Netayahu faced renewed calls to agree a ceasefire with Hamas after more than 20 months of war in Gaza. "And now Gaza. It's time to finish it there too. Bring back the hostages, end the war," opposition leader Yair Lapid of the centre-right Yesh Atid party wrote on X. Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's war against Iran was "contributing to the successes in Gaza, but it will still take a bit more time". The October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Of the 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,077 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable. Mourners cry during a funeral of a person killed while attempting to get aid at a distribution point AFP
