Latest news with #RachelCummings
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Health
- RTÉ News
Starving Gaza children say they wish to die, charity says
Children in Gaza have told the charity 'Save the Children' that they wish to die because they cannot access food and clean water, according to the charity's humanitarian director Rachel Cummings. Speaking on RTÉ's News At One, Ms Cummings said the war in Gaza has inflicted an enormous toll on the mental health of Palestinian children. "We have children in our child friendly spaces, where we provide psychological support, sharing with us that they now wish to die because there is food and water in heaven. "And their family members, their mothers and fathers, are there and they wish to be with them," she said. "It is absolutely catastrophic the impact that this is having immediately on children, but this medium and longer-term impact on children is really, really concerning," she added. The charity has also observed many children and pregnant and breast-feeding women showing signs of malnutrition. Ms Cummings said no food has been available to purchase in the market in Deir al-Balah over the last five days, which is typical of the wider situation in Gaza. She added her team working in the territory also cannot find or buy food. "The situation gets worse and worse every day, which is impossible and incredible to think about. "This is symptomatic of the wider picture being that people don't have enough food to eat. "They're rationing food for their children and this is the situation in the whole of Gaza." People are 'hungry, exhausted and terrified' Ms Cummings said that everyone in Gaza is hungry, exhausted and terrified and have to make very difficult choices when it comes to food. "They're bulking out whatever food they have with water they know to be dirty, that they know may cause their children to be sick." Save the Children in Gaza is loated around 3km away from the area which Israel has demanded people evacuate from as it continues its air and ground attacks. Ms Cummings said they can hear "active" and "heavy" gunfire and bombardments. "There is nowhere safe in Gaza and people being displaced further south into al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, along the beach. "It's very, very congested already, overcrowded, and we know that people have nowhere to go. They have no means to move and people making the impossible decision to stay," she added.
ABC News
5 days ago
- ABC News
'Hardest it's ever been': The situation in Gaza
Desperate Palestinians are urging the world to step in, with around 90 people reportedly killed by Israeli fire while trying to get food. Hamas officials say the deadliest incident has happened in the north of the strip near an aid distribution site operated by the controversial Israel-backed 'Gaza Humanitarian Foundation'. The Israeli army admits it fired warning shots and that there have been casualties, but it disputes the number issued by the militant group. Rachel Cummings is the Humanitarian Director for Save the Children in Gaza and has told ABC NewsRadio's Sarah Morice about the situation on the ground.
Observer
02-07-2025
- Health
- Observer
Over 170 charities urge end to Gaza aid system
More than 170 non-governmental organisations called on Tuesday for a US and Israeli-backed food aid distribution scheme in Gaza to be dismantled over concerns it is putting civilians at risk of death and injury. More than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centres or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May, according to medical authorities in Gaza. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan 'inherently unsafe' and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. As of early afternoon in Geneva on Tuesday, where the joint declaration was released, 171 charities had signed on to the call for countries to press Israel to halt the GHF scheme and reinstate aid coordinated through the United Nations. "Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families," the statement said. Groups signing it included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International. In a response, the GHF said it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted". "Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza," the GHF said. Doctors Without Borders told reporters in an online press briefing on Tuesday that within the last month two of its small primary health centres had received 22 dead and 548 wounded people. Those who died had received fatal wounds to the chest and in abdomen. "They are not warning shots. They are shots directed towards the people," said Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, one of MSF's emergency coordinators in Gaza. In more than 50 per cent of the mass casualty incidents near food distribution sites, children have been shot and killed, said Rachel Cummings, Humanitarian Director for Save the Children in Gaza. "Children have told us they want to die... to be with their mother or father who have been killed. They want to be in paradise because there is food and water," said Cummings. The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians have been harmed at aid distribution centres in Gaza, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned". Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the centres in order to prevent the aid from falling into the hands of Palestinian Hamas fighters. Meanwhile, a UN official tasked with monitoring the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday accused Israel of using companies to pursue a "settler-colonial" displacement project aimed at apartheid and genocide. Francesca Albanese, an Italian legal and human rights academic, said that while political leaders and governments shirked their obligations, "far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide." Albanese, who was appointed UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories in 2022, has published a report entitled 'From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.' Israel has long accused Albanese of lacking fairness, neutrality and impartiality. The Israeli government rejects cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council and its organs. — Reuters/dpa
Days of Palestine
26-05-2025
- General
- Days of Palestine
In Gaza genocide, hungry children walk miles for food
DaysofPal- Each day, countless children across Gaza walk the rubble-strewn streets, clutching empty bowls and bottles in search of food and clean water. After more than eleven weeks of a total Israeli blockade that has choked off humanitarian aid, the situation has reached catastrophic levels, with families resorting to desperate and dangerous means to keep their children alive. Rachel Cummings, humanitarian director with Save the Children, who is currently on the ground in central Gaza, described the unfolding humanitarian disaster as 'desperate and dire,' saying it is 'unimaginable how it feels to be a child in Gaza' under current conditions. 'I see children every day walking the streets trying to find food with empty bowls, trying to find water with empty bottles in hand,' Cummings said. 'We have mothers telling us how they are trying to keep their children alive, how they're talking to bulk it out with grass or dirty water, knowing that could result in their child becoming sick.' Cummings acknowledged that a trickle of aid has entered Gaza in the past 72 hours, calling it 'welcome but insignificant in terms of the actual number of people it can help.' 'What is needed are the thousands of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies that are held up by Israel outside Gaza, carrying life-saving aid,' she said, underscoring the urgent need for widespread humanitarian access. 'This is a very active and complex war. Bombs are dropping on children every day,' she continued. 'So we need a definitive ceasefire in Gaza, we need to be able to access populations and children who are in the most desperate circumstances, and we need humanitarian supplies to enter.' As famine conditions accelerate, humanitarian agencies are also raising serious concerns over new aid delivery proposals that could undermine neutral humanitarian operations. On Sunday, Save the Children issued a strong statement distancing itself from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and any associated plans for militarized aid delivery. The organization reiterated that it will not participate in any system that compromises humanitarian principles. Gabriella Waaijman, Chief Operating Officer of Save the Children, said: 'Save the Children reiterates its firm position that it will not engage with any system of aid delivery in Gaza that fails to uphold humanitarian principles following reports about engaging with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over a new militarized proposal for aid delivery. We have not agreed to support or collaborate with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, nor will we support limiting the number of humanitarian actors in the Gaza response. We stand united with our peers in calling on the Government of Israel and the international community to let us do our jobs.' Waaijman stressed the distinction between principled humanitarian assistance and politicized service delivery. 'Humanitarian principles guide the delivery of the aid people need to the people who need it most, independent of political considerations. Those principles are the difference between real humanitarian action and service delivery, and guide Save the Children's assistance to children and families across the world.' She warned of the consequences of deviating from these standards: 'New proposals for aid delivery that fail to uphold these standards are a distraction with devastating costs. After 11 weeks of total siege on the entry of all supplies into Gaza, thousands of children's lives hang in the balance. But instead of ensuring urgent, principled humanitarian aid delivery at the vast scale needed to save them, the Government of Israel is wasting time on political interference with what must remain a humanitarian-led system.' 'We reiterate our call to the Government of Israel and the international community to uphold humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law to ensure that people urgently receive the relief they need. Anything less is yet another world failure in what is becoming a long list for which the people of Gaza are paying with their lives.' These urgent calls have been echoed by the UN and other international aid organizations, which have warned that the death toll, especially among children, will continue to rise at a horrifying rate unless immediate, widespread access to Gaza and an end to the blockade are granted. Since March 2, Israel has been systematically starving some 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza by closing the crossings to aid that has been piling up at the border, leading to famine and many deaths. Shortlink for this post:
RNZ News
23-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Children dying from malnutrition as food blockaded, Gaza aid worker says
Palestinian children wait in front of a food distribution truck at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port, on Thursday. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa Save the Children says 20 children have died from malnutrition in Gaza in the last few days Speaking to Checkpoint from Deir al-Balah in Gaza, Rachel Cummings the agency's Humanitarian Director for the area, said lack of food for pregnant women was also of particular concern, and parents were using grass and dirty water to try to "bulk out" what food they had to help those suffering from hunger. More than 90 truckloads of humanitarian aid have now made it into Gaza after an almost three-month blockade by Israel. The aid, including flour, baby food and medical equipment, had been taken to warehouses for distribution. But aid agencies say the delivery was nowhere near enough to meet the population's needs, and people remained desperate for food. On average 500 supply trucks had entered Gaza each day before the war. The situation meant half a million Gazans were facing possible starvation with catastrophic levels of hunger, while 1 million others had barely enough food, according to UN-backed food security measures. "It's desperate - every child I meet, every child I see is hungry - and mothers are telling us that they just cry all the time asking for food," Cummings said. "Mothers are having to resort to extreme coping mechanisms to try and bulk out whatever food they can find - adding grass, bulking out with water that they know is dirty, feeding their children late at night so at least they hope they can sleep with the feeling of being full - but it's absolutely desperate. "And of course we're thinking about the immediate impacts for children, but the medium-longterm impacts on children's physical and mental health is very very concerning." Israel has blocked all food, shelter and medicines from entering the Gaza Strip for almost three months, as it continued ground and air offences on the Palestinian territory. Crowds reach out for food as it is distributed at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port, on 22 May. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa "The total population of Gaza - 2 million people - is at risk of famine... any supplies entering Gaza are very much needed," Cummings said. "We know that [the latest 90 trucks of supplies] is just not enough - there's been no medicines, no food, no equipment for water, no tents and shelter has entered Gaza for over 11 weeks. "The compounding factors in Gaza are so complex: You have this ongoing hostility and conflict. Just since 15 May just a week [ago], 172,000 people have been displaced in North and South Gaza. It's really a horrific situation here. A Palestinian boy scrapes off bits of lentil soup remaining in a cooking pot, in front of a food distribution point at a displacement camp near Gaza City's port on 22 May. Photo: AFP/ Omar Al-Qattaa Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
