Gaza hospital says 21 children dead from malnutrition and starvation - War on Gaza
Gaza's population of more than two million people is facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with residents frequently killed as they try to collect humanitarian aid at a handful of distribution points.
"Twenty-one children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in various areas across the Gaza Strip," Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, told reporters.
Abu Salmiya said new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals "every moment" warning there could be "alarming numbers" of deaths due to starvation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Gaza a "horror show" in a speech on Tuesday, with "a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times".
After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2 this year, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted to enter at a trickle in late May.
However, stocks accumulated during the ceasefire have gradually depleted, leaving the territory's inhabitants experiencing the worst shortages since the start of the war in October 2023.
Chaotic scenes have become frequent at aid distribution areas since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation effectively sidelined a vast UN aid delivery network in Gaza.
The UN on Tuesday said Israeli forces had killed over 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the GHF began its operations in late May, with most near the foundation's sites.
Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani posted a video online on Tuesday evening, showing what he said was "950 trucks worth of aid currently waiting in Gaza for international organisations to pick up and distribute".
"This is after Israel facilitated the aid entry into Gaza," he wrote on X.
🎥 WATCH: 950 trucks worth of aid, currently waiting in Gaza❗️for international organizations to pick up and distribute to Gazan civilians. This is after Israel facilitated the aid entry into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/aQTR7Sryhs — LTC Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) July 22, 2025
Latest attacks
Earlier Tuesday, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes had killed 15 people, after the World Health Organization said Israel attacked its facilities amid its expanding ground operations.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that Israeli strikes on the Al-Shati camp west of Gaza City had killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 50.
Most of Gaza's population has been displaced at least once during the conflict and the Al-Shati camp, on the Mediterranean coast, hosts thousands of people displaced from the north in tents and makeshift shelters.
Raed Bakr, 30, lives with his three children and said he heard "a massive explosion" at about 1:40 am on Tuesday (2240 GMT Monday), which blew their tent away.
"I felt like I was in a nightmare. Fire, dust, smoke and body parts flying through the air, dirt everywhere. The children were screaming," Bakr, whose wife was killed last year, told AFP.
Reports of the latest death toll came as the Roman Catholic church's most senior cleric in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "morally unacceptable".
Pizzaballa spent three days in Gaza after an Israeli strike on the territory's only Catholic church last Thursday which killed three people.
New ground operations
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Israeli troops of entering its staff residence, and forcing women and children to evacuate, as they handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint.
Israeli forces meanwhile expanded ground operations in Deir el-Balah following intense shelling of the area in central Gaza on Monday.
The civil defence agency's Bassal said two people were killed in Deir el-Balah.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people were living in the area, which until now had been considered relatively safe.
Some 30,000 were living in displacement sites.
OCHA said nearly 88 percent of the entire Gaza Strip was now either under evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones, forcing the population of 2.4 million into an ever-shrinking space.
Despite what Guterres described as "devastation... upon devastation", Israeli far-right leaders met in Jerusalem to discuss plans for redeveloping Gaza as a tourist-friendly "riviera", with a permanent Jewish presence.
A "master plan" presented at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, foresees the construction of housing for 1.2 million new Jewish residents and the development of industrial and agricultural zones, as well as tourism complexes on the coast.
Since 7 October 2023, Israel's genocidal war in Gaza has killed at least 59,106 Palestinians, most of them women and children, with more than 142,511 others wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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Mada
2 hours ago
- Mada
Source: Al-Azhar grand imam withdrew call to save Gaza at foreign minister's request
Al-Azhar withdrew a Tuesday night statement in which it had called on 'active and influential forces' to stop Israel's genocidal war and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The following afternoon, it justified the withdrawal in a new statement from its media office in which it said it 'realized' the statement 'could affect the ongoing negotiations.' According to Al-Azhar, the decision to withdraw, which it called brave and responsible, came so the statement 'would not be used as an excuse to retreat from the negotiations or to bargain in them.' A source close to Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that Tayeb withdrew the statement after Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty urged him to do so, saying it may obstruct negotiations that are close to reaching a solution that would allow humanitarian aid to enter the besieged Gaza Strip. Palestinians in Gaza have been under an almost total siege since March. The recalled statement came amid increasing global calls to end the war and stop Israel's mass starvation of Palestinians, as the number of people dying from starvation and malnutrition rises. Ten people died from malnutrition-related causes in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Muneer al-Barsh. Tuesday's statement called on 'active and influential forces to do their utmost' to compel Israel to halt its systematic killing of Palestinians, 'immediately allow the entry of humanitarian and relief aid, and open all avenues for treating the sick and injured whose health conditions have deteriorated as a result of the Occupation's targeting of hospitals and medical facilities, in flagrant violation of all divine laws and international conventions.' It was removed from its pages hours later without comment until the following afternoon. The source explained that Tayeb made the decision to remove the statement in case doing so could expedite the entry of 'one bag of flour' to the people of Gaza in light of Abdel Atty's warnings that the ongoing negotiations would be 'ruined' by its publication, which came on behalf of the Egyptian and Qatari mediator according to the source. Last week, Doha was still hosting the first phase of a new round of negotiations that aims to reach an 'agreement of principles' that would serve as a basis for indirect ceasefire talks. At the same time, the United States, Qatar and Egypt presented both Palestinian factions and Israelis with an updated proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. But negotiations have stalled over Hamas's demands for a guarantee that Israel will not resume its war, and over the extent to which the Israeli military will withdraw from areas its forces are occupying in the Gaza Strip. Even amid talks toward a negotiated ceasefire, Israel has established newly fortified areas while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared plans to concentrate most of the Palestinians in Gaza to a confined area, which he dubbed a 'humanitarian city,' near the border with Egypt and resume the war once the truce supported by the US and the mediators ends. The deleted statement said that 'thousands of children and innocent people are being killed in cold blood, while the ones who survive are facing death from hunger, thirst, dehydration, the depletion of medicine and the failure of medical centers to save them from certain death.' It also declared Al-Azhar's 'disavowal before God of this suspicious global silence, the shameful international failure to support these defenseless people, and of any call to displace the people of Gaza from their land, and anyone who accepts or responds to these calls.' The statement, covered widely by domestic press before its withdrawal, which led to some coverage being taken down, was not the first from Tayeb concerning the genocidal war on Gaza. Since October 7, he has expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza, rejection of their displacement, criticism of the Israeli occupation and support for the Palestinian resistance on multiple occasions. This rhetoric does not always align with the official government discourse. Abdel Atty had contacted Tayeb on a previous occasion to change the wording of one of these statements, in parallel with a similar request which came at the time from a 'sovereign body,' according to the source. Al-Azhar's deleted statement comes as humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip deteriorate, amid an increase in the number of deaths from hunger and malnutrition as a result of Israel's starvation policies. Israel has been preventing the entry of humanitarian aid for months, blocking the regular aid entry and distribution mechanisms, while Israeli forces open fire on a daily basis at the people who approach the aid distribution centers designated by Israel. Thirty Western countries called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza on Monday, saying that the suffering of Palestinians has 'reached new depths.' The joint statement condemned 'the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food,' noting that 'over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.' The group also condemned Netanyahu's plans to displace the population to a 'humanitarian city' as a violation of international humanitarian law. For its part, Hamas pointed yesterday to 'the extent of blackmail practiced by the Occupation through its committing of massacres in a desperate attempt to extract positions it has been unable to impose at the negotiating table.'
Mada
2 hours ago
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Hospitals receiving 120 malnutrition patients daily in Gaza, Health Ministry official says
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The shortage has caused prices to soar to 'unbelievable' levels, said Khalil Daher, who was seeking flour in Gaza City's markets earlier this week. He told Mada Masr that traders are selling flour at rates surpassing even those seen during the 'first famine,' the weeks of hunger people lived through during Israel's siege on the strip in 2023, in the early months of its genocidal war. Prices for a kilogram of flour have reached nearly 150 shekels (around US$45), with some reports of a 1 kilogram sack being sold for over $100. Dhaher stood helpless among hundreds of other residents of Gaza City being starved after the trader he used to buy flour from ran out of supplies. He searched the markets for another source but came up empty-handed, unable to ease the days-long hunger his children have endured. For others, even seeking flour isn't an option. Eman Salha and her three children ran out of flour some time ago, and haven't had bread for two weeks. 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Ibrahim Ahmed, one of the protesters, told Mada Masr that he joined the demonstration at the Nasr market in northern Gaza City to denounce traders' exploitation. He said profiteering off people's need has peaked in recent days and blamed the dire situation on the closure of border crossings and the tightening of the blockade. On Saturday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it has food supplies in storage that could sustain the entire population of Gaza for more than three months. But the aid remains stuck in warehouses — including in Egypt's Arish City — pending clearance for entry. The agency repeated its call to open the crossings and lift the blockade on the strip. Gaza's population has now entered the most severe conditions of food insecurity, or Phase 5 famine as per the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the Health Ministry's information unit director said on Monday. 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Al-Ahram Weekly
12 hours ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Israeli forces deepening assaults in Gaza City, killing at least 21 in overnight strikes - War on Gaza
The Israeli military said in a statement Wednesday that forces were operating in Gaza City, as well as in northern Gaza. Troops struck roughly 120 targets throughout Gaza over the past day, the military said without elaborating. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 21 people late Tuesday and early Wednesday. More than half of those killed were women and children, health authorities said. One Israeli strike hit a house Tuesday in the northwestern side of Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to the Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead included six children and two women, according to the Health Ministry's casualty list. Another strike hit an apartment in the Tal al-Hawa area in northern Gaza, killing at least six people. Among the dead were three children and two women, including one who was pregnant. Eight others were wounded, the ministry said. A third strike hit a tent in the Naser neighbourhood in Gaza City late Tuesday and killed three children, Shifa Hospital said. Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday. More than 100 human rights groups and charities signed a letter published Wednesday demanding more aid for Gaza and warning of grim conditions causing starvation. In the letter, the groups said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, 'waste away.' The letter slammed Israel for what it said were restrictions on aid into the war-ravaged territory. It lamented 'massacres' at food distribution points, which have seen chaos and violence in recent weeks as desperation has risen. 'The government of Israel's restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,' the letter said. Since the war started in October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women. This story was edited by Ahram Online. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
