Latest news with #OperationGideonChariot
Gulf Insider
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Insider
Israel Allows Aid Into Gaza As WHO Warns 500,000
Israel has enforced a nearly three-month blockade on humanitarian aid going into the Gaza Strip, amid reports that Hamas and criminal elements have been intercepting and stealing the aid, and then reselling it. The Wall Street Journal reports Monday that 'Israel will allow the resumption of limited aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, ending a nearly three-month blockade that has depleted humanitarian supplies in the enclave as the military expands its operations there.' Pressure has been coming from Washington and international organizations for the ban on aid to be lifted, on new reports that famine is once again hitting the largely destroyed Palestinian enclave. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office first announced Sunday that 'a basic quantity of food to be brought in' to avoid a starvation crisis. He has also declared his intent to take over all of the Gaza Strip. Interestingly, the statement said that a driving concern is not the plight of Gaza civilians, but that mass starvation could risk endangering the Israeli military campaign to annihilate the militant group Hamas. Netanyahu is framing the move as necessary to keep up political support from Washington: Netanyahu said U.S. senators he has known for years as supporters of Israel, 'our best friends in the world', were telling him the scenes of hunger were draining vital support and bringing Israel close to a 'red line, to a point where we might lose control'. 'It is for that reason, in order to achieve victory, we have to somehow solve the problem,' he said, in a message apparently addressed to far-right hardliners in his government who have insisted aid be denied to Gaza to stop it reaching Hamas. So the new policy to allow aid in is a political ploy, but one that will indeed likely satisfy critics, for the time being at least. Fresh reports out of the UN and World Health Organization (WHO) have sounded the alarm, saying nearly 500,000 people are at risk of starvation in Gaza. 'Populations across the Gaza Strip are at risk of famine as fighting has surged again, border crossings are still closed, and food is dangerously scarce,' a UN statement says. 'Hunger and malnutrition have intensified sharply since all aid was blocked from entering on 2 March, reversing the clear humanitarian gains seen during the ceasefire earlier this year,' the UN's World Food Program has said. Unbelievable Happening now in the rubble.. Operation Gideon Chariot. — Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) May 19, 2025 And the organization, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), projects that 'an alarming 71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition. A report states that 'At the beginning of 2025, agencies estimated 60,000 children would need treatment.' The organization further warned that 'Families in Gaza are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border.' As it's believed that tens of thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants are still utilizing Gaza's vast tunnel network to fight the Israelis, the war looks to continue possibly for years to come. Also read: Thousands Of Unexploded Israeli Bombs In Gaza Provide Hamas With Weapons
Sky News
17-05-2025
- Health
- Sky News
Israel carries out 'extensive strikes' in Gaza as it prepares to expand operations
Israel's military says it has been "conducting extensive strikes and mobilising troops" as part of preparations to expand operations in Gaza. More than 300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Thursday, according to local health authorities, as Israel appeared ready for a new ground offensive. It is one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March. The director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan Al-Sultan, said it had received 58 bodies since midnight "while a large number of victims remain under the rubble". "The situation inside the hospital is catastrophic," he added. Israel's military's preparations to expand operations in Gaza have included the build-up of tanks and troops along the border. This week's deadly strikes in Gaza have marked a significant escalation in Israel's offensive. It is part of "Operation Gideon Chariot", which Israel says is aimed at defeating Hamas and getting its hostages back. An Israeli defence official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before Donald Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East. The US president ended his trip on Friday, with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire. Meanwhile, Sky's US partner network NBC News has reported that up to a million Palestinians could be permanently relocated from Gaza to war-torn Libya under plans being worked on by Mr Trump's administration. It is understood that the idea has been discussed with Libya's leadership and would potentially see billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds released. However, a US government spokesperson denied the NBC report, saying: "The situation on the ground is untenable for such a plan. Such a plan was not discussed and makes no sense." 3:27 On Saturday, the annual summit of the Arab League is taking place, with the war in Gaza expected to feature in discussions. The meeting comes two months after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas militant group. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 5 May that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing Gaza and controlling aid. This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence. Israel's goal is the elimination of Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages. Its military response has killed more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'A shortage of everything except death': How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign
A wave of deadly strikes in northern Gaza has marked a significant escalation in Israel's offensive. The Israeli military (IDF) says it has struck "over 150 terror targets" across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours - an average of one airstrike every ten minutes. At least 109 people have been killed in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number killed this week to 284. That number may rise further. On Friday morning, the director of Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that more than 250 people had been killed in the previous 36 hours alone. Nurse and his family killed in strike The impact of this new bombardment is cataclysmic, as this video of an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, verified by Sky News, shows. Other videos show huge smoke clouds rising from airstrikes on residential neighbourhoods surrounding the city's Indonesian Hospital. The hospital's director, Dr Marwan al Sultan, told Sky News: "There is a shortage of everything except death." Among those killed in Jabalia on Friday was 42-year old Yahya Shehab, a nurse for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PRCF). He was killed alongside his wife Tamara, 37, and their five children: Sarah, 18, Anas, 16, Maryam, 14, Aya, 12 and Abdul, 11. He is survived by his niece Huda, 27, a civil engineer, who lives nearby with her husband Ahmad Ngat, 31, and their two young sons, Mohammed, seven, and Yusuf, four. Ahmad remembers Yahya as kind and generous, and that he would use his skills as a nurse to treat Mohammed and Yusuf whenever they were sick. "His kids were great too," Ahmad says. "May God have mercy on them." Operation Gideon Chariot An Israeli official said Friday's strikes were preparatory actions in the lead-up to a larger operation. Earlier this month, Israel's security cabinet approved "Operation Gideon Chariot" - a plan to "capture" all of Gaza and force its entire population to move to a small enclave in the southern Gaza Strip. At the time, a defence official said the operation would go ahead if no hostage deal was reached by the end of US President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East. That visit ended on Friday, 16 had proposed releasing all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war. Last month, Hamas turned down Israel's offer of a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the militant group laying down its weapons and releasing half the living hostages. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sits in the security cabinet, said of Operation Gideon Chariot that Gaza would be "entirely destroyed", and that its population will "leave in great numbers to third countries". Ahmad says he is ready to leave Gaza with his family at the earliest opportunity. "We want to live our lives," he says. His wife Huda grieving the loss of her uncle Yahya, is seven months pregnant. The family are constantly struggling to find enough food for her and the children, he says. "Unfortunately, she suffers greatly," Ahmad says. "She developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy." Israel has prevented the entry of all food, fuel and water since 2 March. On Monday, a UN-backed report warned that one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation. Satellite imagery may show new aid hubs Under new proposals backed by the US, Israel now intends to control the distribution of aid via private military contractors. The proposals, set to start operating by the end of May, would see aid distributed from militarised compounds in four locations around the Gaza Strip. Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows Israel has constructed four compounds which could be used for aid distribution. Construction began in April and was completed by early May. Three of these are clustered together in the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip, with one in the central Netzarim corridor. None are located in northern Gaza, where Ahmad and Huda's family live. The UN has called this a "deliberate attempt to weaponise" aid distribution and has refused to participate. The planned aid distribution system is being coordinated by a new non-profit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up in February in Switzerland. Its board includes a former head of World Central Kitchen, as well as people with close ties to the US military and private military contractors. Proposals drawn up by the GHF say the four planned aid distribution sites could feed around 1.2 million people, approximately 60% of Gaza's population. The GHF later requested that Israel establish additional distribution points. Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Relief chief Tom Fletcher said the plan "makes starvation a bargaining chip". "It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement," he said. Large areas of Gaza have already been razed in recent weeks, including vast tracts of the southern city of Rafah, where many had fled during the war's early stages. Sky News analysis of satellite imagery shows approximately two-thirds of Rafah's built-up area (66%) has been reduced entirely to rubble, with buildings across much of the rest of the city showing signs of severe damage. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch executive director Federico Borello said the UK and US have a duty, under the Genocide Convention, to "stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza". He said: "Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza's two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington." Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Friday that Israel's new offensive is intended to secure the release of its hostages. "Our objective is to get them home and get Hamas to relinquish power," he said. The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
