Gazan woman flown to Italy dies of malnutrition
More than 180 children and adults have been brought to Italy since the start of Israel's war with Gaza. Thirty one patients and their companions arrived Rome, Milan, and Pisa this week, all with serious congenital diseases, wounds or amputations, the Italian foreign ministry said. Meanwhile, British MPs urged the government to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK "without delay", weeks after the British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, promised to set up an evacuation scheme.The Home Office said it intends to evacuate a few hundred children from Gaza "at pace" and that biometric tests must be carried out before children and carers can be allowed in the UK.
The Israeli ministry said it will start providing Gaza City residents with tents and other equipment from Sunday before relocating them to "safe zones".The statement came days after Israel's government announced troops would occupy Gaza City. Several days of heavy bombardment of the Zeitoun, the largest district in the city, has since followed.A spokesperson for the municipality told the BBC that the situation in Zeitoun was "catastrophic", with mass displacement taking place after six days of relentless Israeli air strikes, shelling and demolition operations.At least 36 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday, according Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.The health ministry also said that 11 more people had died from malnutrition, bringing the number of hunger-related deaths to more than 250. The Israeli military said it was "committed to mitigating civilian harm" and questioned the reliability of the death tolls provided by the Hamas-run ministries.Israel's government denies there is malnutrition in Gaza. It says its forces target terrorists and never civilians, and claims that Hamas is responsible for the humanitarian crisis. More than 60,000 people have been killed since the start of Israel's war in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
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Sky News
6 hours ago
- Sky News
Remaining hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed with malnutrition cases
In the Al-Rantisi hospital in Gaza City, nine-year-old Maryam Dawas is wasting away. WARNING: This shows people suffering from malnutrition which you may find distressing Her malnutrition is so severe, she can no longer eat. Her tiny ribcage juts out of her chest. Her upper arms are thinner than her wrists. Every blink looks like it's a struggle. Her eyes are tired and sad. "What is your dream now?" a family friend who's filming asks her. "To go back to the way I was," she whispers back. Maryam Dawas used to weigh 25kg (3st 9lb). Now she weighs nine (1st 4lb). That's about the weight of a baby that hasn't yet reached its first birthday. Her medical records say she has functional diarrhoea, unspecified intestinal malabsorption and unspecified severe protein-energy malnutrition. "Maryam suffered from malnutrition ever since we were displaced from the north to Rafah," her mother explains. "Because of the famine that was in the south, we went through a famine, but it wasn't worse than the one we are in now." Maryam's case is hardly unique. The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition were recorded in July. The latest numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children. "I went to multiple hospitals in the last week and every one of them is overwhelmed with malnutrition cases, severe malnutrition - children, teenagers, you name it," OCHA Gaza representative Olga Cherevko tells me. "And whether it's a pre-existing condition or malnutrition on its own, the fact that it's in the state that it is means that it exacerbates whatever condition exists on top of it." Israel's coordinator of government activities in the territories (COGAT) claimed on Tuesday that Hamas was inflating the numbers of people in Gaza dying of malnutrition, and that most of the children who had died had pre-existing health conditions. But that is the thing about famine. It seeks out the vulnerable first and then it settles in, ingraining itself with the weak and the poverty-stricken, exacerbating their problems. In his book Poverty and Famines, the Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen writes as his opening line: "Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat." 3:08 Aid not getting to the most weak and vulnerable There is now a trickle of aid getting into Gaza, but it is getting to those who are strong enough to fight for it. Siphoned off from aid points and sold on the black market, it is getting to the few who still have some money to pay for it. It is not getting to the weak, the vulnerable and the poor, though that describes the majority of Gaza's 2.1 million residents. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (ICE) which measures food insecurity and famine, 81% of households in Gaza reported poor food consumption in July, up from 33% in April; 24% of households experienced very severe hunger in July, compared with 4% in April; and nearly nine out of 10 households resorted to "extremely severe coping mechanisms" to feed themselves. That huge hike in food insecurity follows on directly from Israel's total blockade, which began on 2 March and ended on 19 May when Israel began a limited resumption of food supplies. Eleven weeks in which nothing at all came in, compounding almost two years of war and a partial blockade of Gaza ongoing since 2007. The UK says it plans to evacuate more injured and critically ill children from Gaza "at pace". For children like Maryam, that could not happen soon enough.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Israeli military preparing to expel Gaza City residents as baby in tent among those killed in latest attacks
The Israeli military will begin preparing for the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City, it said on Saturday, as health officials said it had killed at least 40 people including a baby in a tent and people seeking aid in its latest attacks. The announcement came days after Israel said it intended to launch a new offensive to seize control of Gaza City, the enclave's largest urban centre, in a plan that raised international alarm. The Israeli offensive has already displaced most of the population, killed tens of thousands of civilians and created a famine. Gaza residents would be provided with tents and other shelter equipment starting from Sunday ahead of relocating them from combat zones to the south of the enclave 'to ensure their safety,' the Israeli military claimed on Saturday. It did not say when the mass displacement would begin. Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it had declared as safe zones. On Saturday a baby girl and her parents were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in al-Muwasi, previously designated a humanitarian zone by Israel, in southern Gaza, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. 'Two and a half months, what has she done?' her neighbour Fathi Shubeir asked. 'They are civilians in an area designated safe.' Israel's military said it couldn't comment on the strike without more details. Al-Muwasi is now one of the most heavily populated areas in Gaza after Israel pushed people into the desolate area. But prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said Israel planned to widen its coming military offensive to include the area, along with Gaza City and 'central camps' – an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza. According to the civil defence agency, at least 13 of the Palestinians killed on Saturday were shot by troops as they were waiting to collect food aid near distribution sites in the north and in the south. There were also another 11 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Saturday, including at least one child. That brings malnutrition-related deaths due to the Israeli blockade on aid to 251. In recent days, Gaza City residents have reported more frequent air strikes targeting residential areas especially in the east and south and including the Zeitun neighbourhood. Hamas said on Saturday the military was targeting the area with warplanes, artillery and drones. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said conditions in Zeitun were rapidly deteriorating with residents having little to no access to food and water amid heavy Israeli bombardment. He said that about 50,000 people were estimated to be in that area of Gaza City, 'the majority of whom are without food or water' and lacking 'the basic necessities of life'. Ghassan Kashko, 40, who is sheltering with his family at a school building in the neighbourhood, said: 'We don't know the taste of sleep.' He said air strikes and tank shelling were causing 'explosions... that don't stop'. Israel was carrying out ethnic cleansing in Zeitun, Bassal said. The Israeli military says it abides by international law though rights groups, including in Israel, say it is committing genocide. In its announcement on Saturday the military said shelter equipment would be transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza by the United Nations and other international relief organisations after being inspected by defence ministry personnel, the military said. Israeli inspections and bureaucracy have until now resulted in much aid being refused entry to the territory. A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expressed concern over Israel's plans to relocate people to southern Gaza saying it would only increase suffering. But the UN body welcomed Israel's recognition that shelter is a desperate need and that tents and other shelter equipment will be allowed again into Gaza. 'The UN and its partners will seize the opportunity this opens,' the spokesperson said. The UN warned on Thursday that thousands of families already enduring appalling humanitarian conditions could be pushed over the edge if the Gaza City plan moves ahead. Palestinian and United Nations officials have said no place in the enclave is safe, including areas in southern Gaza where Israel has been ordering residents to move to. The military declined to comment when asked whether the shelter equipment was intended for Gaza City's population, estimated at around one million people presently, and whether the site to which they will be relocated in southern Gaza would be the area of Rafah, which borders Egypt. Israel's defence minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the plans for the new offensive were still being formulated. The Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, said that the military's announcement 'as part of its brutal attack to occupy Gaza City, is a blatant and brazen mockery of international conventions.' Protests calling for a hostage release and an end to the war were expected throughout Israel on Sunday, with many businesses, municipalities and universities saying they will support employees striking for the day. The families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for the 'nationwide day of stoppage' on Sunday to express growing frustration over the war. They fear the coming offensive will further endanger the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of whom are thought to still be alive.
North Wales Chronicle
a day ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Woman from Gaza evacuated to Italy dies in hospital
The patient was admitted to Pisa University Hospital late on Wednesday and died on Friday. She was removed from Gaza as part of a humanitarian mission and arrived with a 'with a very complex, compromised clinical picture', according to the hospital. She died after entering a respiratory crisis and subsequently going into cardiac arrest, it said in a statement. Hospital staff had performed tests and started supportive therapy before she died, the statement said. The woman, named by Italian media as Marah Abu Zuhri, had arrived in Italy with her mother. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said almost 120 Palestinians – 31 patients and their families – had been flown to Rome, Milan and Pisa on three planes. In a post on X, Mr Tajani said that it was the 14th medical evacuation of Palestinians that Italy had conducted since January 2024, and the largest. The hospital did not specify whether the woman had suffered from malnutrition, but said that she had arrived in a 'state of severe physical deterioration.' Eugenio Giani, leader of the Tuscan region, expressed his condolences on Saturday for the woman's death. Earlier in the week, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that starvation and malnutrition in Gaza were at their highest levels since the Israel-Hamas war began. The UN says nearly 12,000 children under five were found to have acute malnutrition in July – including more than 2,500 with severe malnutrition, the most dangerous level. The World Health Organisation says the numbers are likely an undercount. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month no one in Gaza is starving. 'There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,' he said. US President Donald Trump responded to Mr Netanyahu's claim by noting the images emerging of emaciated people. 'I don't know,' Mr Trump said when asked if he agreed with the Israeli leader's comment. 'I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.' On Saturday, the US State Department said all visitor visas for people from Gaza are being stopped while a review is carried out of how 'a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas' were issued in recent days. Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed around triple the amount of food into Gaza than what had been entering since late May. That was after two and a half months when Israel barred all food, medicine and other supplies, saying it was to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken during its October 2023 attack that launched the war.
