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CNN
6 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Gaza aid crisis: Why Gazans are dying of hunger or being killed by Israel on a near daily basis
Twenty-one months into Israel's war in Gaza, the enclave is gripped by escalating scenes of death and hunger, with some killed while trying to reach aid, others dying of starvation and growing condemnation of Israel's conduct even among many of its closest allies. The United Nations says more than a thousand people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking food since late May, when a controversial new Israel- and US-backed aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating. Of those, hundreds have died near GHF sites, according to the UN. The GHF was created to replace the UN's aid role in Gaza and has been widely criticized for failing to improve conditions. All 2.1 million people in Gaza are now food insecure. On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 900,000 children are going hungry, and 70,000 already show signs of malnutrition. But how did it come to this? Before the war, Gaza was already one of the most isolated and densely populated places on earth, with around two million people packed into an area of 140 square miles. Israel has maintained tight control over the territory through a yearslong land, air and sea blockade, with severe restrictions on the movement of goods and people. More than half of its residents were food insecure and under the poverty line, according to the UN. Between 500 and 600 truckloads of aid entered Gaza daily before the conflict. That number has since plummeted to an average of just 28 trucks per day, a group of humanitarian organizations said Wednesday. It's unclear if the figure includes trucks used in GHF's operations. Following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack, which left 1,200 people dead and more than 250 taken hostage, Israel ordered a 'complete siege' of Gaza, halting the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel. A humanitarian crisis swiftly unfolded, as trapped residents faced both hunger and a devastating Israeli military campaign in response. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Israel's use of food as a 'weapon of war' and accused it of imposing 'collective punishment.' Following international pressure, the first trucks carrying aid entered Gaza in late October. A temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on November 24, 2023, slightly increasing aid flow. But the truce collapsed a week later. Aid deliveries subsequently dwindled again, and stringent Israeli inspections further delayed shipments. Israeli authorities said screening was necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting supplies but humanitarian officials accused Israel of deliberately throttling aid. Further compounding the crisis was the Israeli campaign against the UN and its aid delivery system, which Israel said was ineffective and allowed aid to fall Hamas' hands. The UN denies this. Among the agencies targeted was the UN's Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which Israel accused of having staff involved in the October 7 attack. A UN investigation found that nine of UNWRA's 13,000 Gaza-based employees 'may have' participated and no longer worked at the agency. In January this year, Israel banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza, cutting off viral services like food, health care and education to hundreds of thousands of people. As Israel's campaign leveled much of Gaza, displacing most of its residents and weakening Hamas' grip on the territory, lawlessness began to spread. Looting became a new hurdle for UN trucks, and casualties mounted at aid delivery points. Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas and armed gangs for the chaos. The UN warned just weeks into the war that civil order was beginning to collapse, with desperate Palestinians taking flour and hygiene supplies from warehouses. By November 2024, the UN again raised the alarm, saying the capacity to deliver aid was 'completely gone.' In 'one of the worst' looting incident, over 100 trucks were lost, it said. Drivers were forced to unload trucks at gunpoint, aid workers were injured, and vehicles were damaged extensively. As Hamas' grip on Gaza waned and the territory's police force was hollowed out, gangs emerged to steal aid and resell it. Israel has also armed local militias to counter Hamas – a controversial move that opposition politicians have warned will endanger Israeli national security. The arming of militias appears to be the closest that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to empowering any form of alternate rule in the strip. Since the start of the war, the Israeli leader has refused to lay out a plan for Gaza's governance once the conflict ends. On January 19, another temporary ceasefire was reached. Aid resumed, but remained well short of what was needed. Israel reinstated a total blockade of Gaza on March 2 after the truce expired. Two weeks later, it resumed fighting, with officials saying the goal was to force Hamas to accept new ceasefire terms and release hostages. By July, the World Food Programme (WFP) assessed that a quarter of Gaza's population was facing famine-like conditions. At least 80 children have died of malnutrition since the conflict began, the Palestinian health ministry says. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), most of these occurred after the March blockade. In May, GHF, the controversial new Israeli- and American-backed organization, announced it would begin delivering with Israel's approval. Just days before GHF began operating, its director Jake Wood resigned, saying it was impossible to do his work 'while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.' The foundation was created to replace the UN's role in Gaza, while complying with Israeli demands that the aid not reach Hamas. The GHF said it would coordinate with the Israeli military, but that security would be provided by private military contractors. The UN has refused to participate, saying the GHF model violates some basic humanitarian principles. Critics have noted that there are only a small number of GHF distribution sites, in southern and central Gaza – far fewer than hundreds under the UN's previous model. This has forced massive crowds to gather at limited locations. The GHF has defended its system, saying it is a 'secure model (that) blocks the looting.' But soon after it began operating on May 27, the plan turned deadly as those seeking aid increasingly came under fire near GHF aid sites. Palestinian officials and witnesses have said Israeli troops are responsible for most of the deaths. The Israeli military acknowledged firing warning shots toward crowds in some instances, but denied responsibility for other incidents. And the deaths aren't limited to the vicinity of GHF aid sites. On Sunday, Israeli forces killed dozens waiting for aid in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israel said troops fired warning shots after sensing an 'immediate threat' The ministry of health recorded 10 deaths due to famine and malnutrition in 24 hours from Tuesday, bringing the total of Palestinians who died of starvation to 111. On Wednesday, 111 international humanitarian organizations called on Israel to end its blockade and agree to a ceasefire, warning that supplies in the enclave are now 'totally depleted' and that humanitarian groups are 'witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.' An Israeli official said at a press briefing on Wednesday that they expect more aid to enter the enclave in the future. 'We would like to see more and more trucks entering Gaza and distributing the aid as long as Hamas is not involved,' the official said. 'As we see for now, Hamas has an interest: First, to put pressure on the State of Israel through the international community in order to (have) an effect in the (ceasefire) negotiation process; and second, to collapse the new mechanism that we have established that is making sure that they are not involved in the aid delivery inside Gaza.' International pressure continues to mount on Israel, including from the United States. And on Monday, the foreign ministers of 25 Western nations slammed Israel for 'drip feeding' aid into the Gaza Strip. Israel's foreign ministry said it 'rejects' the statement, calling it 'disconnected from reality.' CNN's Tim Lister, Mostafa Salem, Catherine Nicholls, Oren Liebermann, Eugenia Yosef, Dana Karni, Mike Schwartz, Mick Krever, Eugenia Yosef and Jeremy Diamond contributed reporting.
Arab News
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Food situation in Gaza ‘absolutely desperate,' charity warns
LONDON: Rachael Cummings, the humanitarian director for Save the Children, described the food situation in Gaza as 'absolutely desperate' and 'the worst it has ever been.' She spoke to Sky News from Deir Al-Balah on Tuesday, a city in central Gaza where Israeli forces launched a bombing campaign this week and where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. 'One of my colleagues said to me yesterday: 'We are all walking together towards death'. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza. 'There is no food for their children; it's absolutely desperate here,' she said during the video call. Markets in the territory are devoid of goods, she added, and people with cash are unable to find bread or vegetables to buy. 'My team have said to me: 'There's nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day'.' Cummings' remarks came as the UK, along with 24 other nations, issued a joint statement on Monday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticizing the US-Israeli model of aid distribution. In recent weeks, hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed while attempting to obtain food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial organization supported by the US and Israel. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' the joint statement said. The 25 countries also called for the 'immediate and unconditional release' of hostages captured by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks. Sources informed Reuters that Israel suspects some hostages taken by the armed group may be located near Deir Al-Balah. Meanwhile, several humanitarian organizations, including UNRWA and the Norwegian Refugee Council, have also warned that some of their staff are starving due to low food and drinking water supplies in the territory. Since Sunday, 21 children have died in Gaza due to severe malnutrition and hunger-related complications, amid shortages of food and medical supplies. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy pledged £40 million ($54 million) for humanitarian assistance in Gaza on Tuesday. Charity staffer Liz Allcock, who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza, welcomed the announcement, but told Sky News: 'There have been (similar) statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed. In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can't get worse, it does. 'Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing and the militarization of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response,' she said. 'And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we're trying to serve.'
Al Jazeera
21-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
Israeli forces kill 92 aid seekers in Gaza as 19 people starve to death
Israeli forces have killed at least 115 Palestinians across Gaza, including 92 people who were shot dead while trying to get food at the Zikim crossing in the north and aid points in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south. The killings on Sunday came as Israel's continued siege of Gaza worsened a hunger crisis, with health authorities there announcing at least 19 deaths from starvation over the past day. In Zikim, Israeli forces shot at least 79 Palestinians, according to medical sources, as large crowds gathered there in the hopes of getting flour from a United Nations aid convoy. Nine more were killed near an aid point in Rafah, where 36 others had lost their lives just 24 hours earlier. Four more were killed near a second aid site in Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence. Rizeq Betaar, a Palestinian man who survived the attack at Zikim, helped carry one young victim to the hospital. 'We saw this young man lying on the ground, and we were the ones who carried him on the bicycle. We're trying to get him to help. But there is nothing,' Betaar said. 'There are no ambulances, no food, no life, no way to live any more. We're barely hanging on.' Another survivor, Osama Marouf, also helped to transport an old man who was shot and wounded. 'We brought this old man from Zikim. He went just to get some flour,' Marouf said. 'I tried to save him on the bicycle – I don't even want the flour any more, he's like my father, this old man. May God give me the strength to do good. And may this hardship not last much longer.' Israel's military acknowledged the attack, saying it had fired 'warning shots to remove an immediate threat posed to the troops' in northern Gaza. It did not, however, provide evidence or details of the alleged threat. The military went on to dispute the high number of casualties. 'New levels of desperation' The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) issued a statement that disputed the Israeli account, saying the victims were simply people 'trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation'. It said the Israeli shootings happened shortly after a convoy of 25 trucks carrying food assistance crossed the Zikim point. 'Shortly after passing the final checkpoint… the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,' the agency said. 'As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.' The violence came despite assurances from Israel that operational conditions for humanitarian agencies in Gaza would improve, the WFP said, including that armed forces would not be present nor engage along convoy routes. 'Gaza's hunger crisis has reached new levels of desperation. People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment. Nearly one person in three is not eating for days,' the WFP warned. 'Only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilise this spiraling situation, calm anxieties and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming,' it added. Gaza's Ministry of Health echoed that warning, saying that at least 19 Palestinians died of hunger on Sunday and hundreds more suffering from malnutrition could die soon. 'We warn that hundreds of people whose bodies have wasted away are at risk of imminent death due to hunger,' a spokesperson for the ministry said. The ministry added that at least 71 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in 2023, while 60,000 others show signs of severe undernourishment. Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary, reporting from central Gaza, said that a 35-day-old baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah had died of malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. 'The mother was touching her body, saying, 'I am sorry I could not feed you,'' Khoudary said. 'Parents go to the GHF [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] distribution sites to risk getting killed or leave their children starving. We met a mother who is giving her children water just to fill their stomachs. She can't afford flour – and when she could, she couldn't find it.' 'Heading into the unknown' In southern Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 13 people waiting for food near a distribution point run by the United States-backed GHF. The killings brought the number of Palestinians killed at or near GHF sites since May to nearly 1,000 people. Ahmed Hassouna, who was trying to bring food back from the GHF aid site, said an Israeli tank 'came at us from the side'. 'There was a young man with me, too – and they started firing gas at us. They killed us with the gas. We barely made it out to catch a breath, they suffocated us with the gas,' Hassouna told Al Jazeera. The UN and humanitarian aid agencies have long denounced the GHF for its 'weaponisation' of aid in Gaza and called on Israel to allow the entry of other humanitarian assistance, which has been blocked from entering the enclave. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said staff in Gaza are sending desperate messages about the lack of food. 'All man-made, in total impunity. Food is available only a few kilometres away,' he wrote on X, adding that UNRWA has enough supplies at the border to feed Gaza for three months. But Israel has been blocking aid since March 2. The US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also denounced Israel's continuous attacks on aid seekers. 'The escalating massacres of starving Palestinian women, children and men murdered with US-supplied weapons and with the complicity of our government as they desperately search for food to feed their families is not only a human tragedy, it is also an indictment of a Western political order that has enabled this genocide through inaction and indifference,' said Nihad Awad, CAIR's national executive director. 'Western governments cannot claim ignorance. They are watching in real time as innocent civilians are intentionally starved, forcibly displaced, and slaughtered – and are choosing to do nothing. History will long remember the Western world's indifference to the forced starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.' Doctors in Gaza, meanwhile, said there has been a surge in people showing up at hospitals weak and malnourished, but that they do not have the resources needed to treat them. Dr Mohammed Abu Afash, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that women and children are collapsing from hunger. 'We are heading into the unknown. Malnutrition among children has reached its highest levels,' he said, warning of a looming disaster if aid is not allowed in immediately.
Arab News
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Gaza civil defense says Israeli fire kills 57 aid seekers
GAZA CITY: Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians waiting to collect humanitarian aid in the territory's north on Sunday, killing 57 people and wounding dozens more. Further to the south, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to leave Deir el-Balah, in the center of the Strip, before launching its first operations against Hamas militants in the area. Pope Leo XIV, meanwhile, called for peace in Gaza days after Israeli tank fire hit the territory's only Catholic church, killing three. Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence, with the authorities in Gaza blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials gather in huge numbers near aid centers. Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had rushed to the Al-Sudaniya area of Gaza City in the hope of getting a bag of flour, joining a 'desperate' crowd of thousands. 'There was deadly overcrowding and pushing — women, men and children,' said Khater, who was displaced from Jabalia, north of the city. 'It felt like we were no longer alive, like we had no souls left. The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest,' he added. 'Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone.' Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 'Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting for aid,' and that 'dozens' were wounded. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties. Asked for comment, the military said it was looking into the latest reports of deaths. The army has maintained that it works to avoid harm to civilians, saying this month that it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground 'following lessons learned' from a spate of similar incidents. The war was sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 58,895 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed his regret to Pope Leo XIV after what he described as a 'stray' munition killed three people sheltering at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. At the end of the pope's Angelus prayer on Sunday, the leader of the world's Catholics said the strike was part of the 'ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza.' 'I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations,' he added. The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, held mass at the Gaza church on Sunday after traveling to the territory on Friday. Most of Gaza's population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war and there have been repeated evacuation calls across large parts of the coastal territory. On Sunday, the Israeli military told residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area to move south immediately. Israel was 'expanding its activities' against Hamas around Deir el-Balah, 'where it has not operated before,' the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X. The announcement prompted concern from families of hostages held since October 7, 2023 that the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones. They called in a statement for Israeli authorities to 'urgently explain to Israeli citizens and families what the fighting plan is and how exactly it protects the abductees who are still in Gaza.' Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the last two weeks in indirect talks on a proposed 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages. Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Al Mayadeen
15-07-2025
- Health
- Al Mayadeen
Gaza Ministry reports 139 martyrs amid ongoing Israeli strikes
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Sunday that hospitals received the bodies of 139 martyrs, including five retrieved from under the rubble, and 425 injuries over 24 hours. Many victims remain trapped beneath debris and along roads, unreachable due to continued bombardment. Since October 7, 2023, as of June 16, 2025, the death toll of the Israeli genocide in Gaza has surged to 58,026 Palestinians killed and 138,520 injured. Since March 18, 2025, the total toll has risen to 7,450 martyred and 26,479 wounded. Moreover, as the Israeli-made famine looms over Gaza, 28 starved Palestinians were killed since early morning, and over 180 were injured while trying to receive aid at designated 'aid distribution sites' and were later transported to hospitals, as per the Ministry's report. The death toll among Palestinians killed while seeking food aid in designated distribution zones has now climbed to 833, with more than 5,432 others wounded, according to the report. At least 62 Palestinians were killed on Sunday as Israeli forces intensified their aerial and artillery assault across the Gaza Strip, striking residential neighborhoods, medical staff, and camps sheltering displaced civilians. According to Gaza's Civil Defense, 28 of the fatalities occurred in Gaza City alone, amid relentless bombardment that continues to devastate densely populated areas. The casualties include women, children, doctors, and humanitarian workers. Meanwhile, in Khan Younis, Civil Defense Lieutenant Ahmed Ismail al-Bureim was killed in an attack on forcibly displaced civilians in the Abasan area. His martyrdom raises the total number of Civil Defense personnel killed since the beginning of the genocide to 131. Strikes also targeted civilians near aid distribution centers and in displacement zones. Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that three Palestinians were killed near a humanitarian aid point north of Rafah, while drone strikes on tents sheltering families in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, claimed three more lives, including that of a child in al-Sumoud camp. In a harrowing massacre, a direct Israeli strike on the crowded al-Samer junction in central Gaza City killed 17 Palestinians, among them a child and a physician, leaving over 50 others wounded. Concurrently, Israeli warplanes bombed a local market, killing Dr. Ahmed Qandil, a renowned general surgery consultant. Further bombardment struck the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, where four Palestinians were killed near the Jordanian Hospital. Additional airstrikes hit homes in al-Sham'a and areas surrounding the al-Sham'a Mosque, as per our correspondent. Additionally, artillery shelling on al-Nadeem Street in al-Zaytoun killed at least one Palestinian and wounded others. In the central Gaza Strip, reports indicate that air raids on al-Nuseirat refugee camp alone left at least 50 people dead. Medical teams continue to operate under catastrophic conditions, facing shortages of equipment, targeted attacks, and ongoing threats to their lives. That said, human rights organizations have condemned the strikes on civilian areas, health workers, and critical infrastructure, urging immediate international action to stop the Israeli genocide.
