Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as pressure on Israel grows – Middle East crisis live
Date: 2025-07-23T06:49:18.000Z
Title: More than 100 aid organisations warn of 'mass starvation' in Gaza
Content: More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that 'mass starvation' was spreading in Gaza, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than 2 million people face severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict, triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel.
The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May – in effect sidelining the existing UN-led system.
A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that 'our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away'.
The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.
Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.
In their statement, the humanitarian organisations said that warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from accessing or delivering the goods.
The signatories said:
Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions.
It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage.
The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.
Update:
Date: 2025-07-23T06:45:50.000Z
Title: Opening summary
Content: Hello and welcome back to the Guardian's coverage of the Middle East.
More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that 'mass starvation' was spreading in Gaza ahead of the US top envoy's visit to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and an aid corridor.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than 2 million people face severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict, triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel.
The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May – in effect sidelining the existing UN-led system.
A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that 'our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away'.
The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.
It came a day after the US said its envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe this week for talks on Gaza and may then visit the Middle East.
Witkoff comes with 'a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to,' state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters.
In other developments:
The head of Gaza's largest hospital on Tuesday said 21 children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days, while Israel pressed a devastating assault. Gaza's population of more than 2 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.
News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has called on Israel to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families from the Gaza Strip, a day after they warned that they were struggling to work due to starvation. In a statement, the French news agency said its freelancers faced an 'appalling situation' in Gaza. A 21-month war with Israel has devastated the territory, a conflict triggered by Hamas's deadly attack on Israel in October 2023.
The head of the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (Unrwa) said on Tuesday that its staff members as well as doctors and humanitarian workers are fainting on duty due to hunger and exhaustion, describing the situation in Gaza as 'hell on earth'. Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini also called the Israeli-backed logistics group run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a 'sadistic death trap'. He said snipers opened fire randomly on crowds at aid sites as if they are given a 'licence to kill'. The GHF responded by claiming the UN was 'refusing' to deliver aid in Gaza that could help end the desperation in the region.
Israel's government is pursuing an 'unacceptable and morally unjustifiable' policy in Gaza, the Catholic Latin patriarch of Jerusalem has said after visiting a church in the territory that was attacked by Israeli forces last week and meeting survivors. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said he had witnessed extreme hunger on the brief trip, his first into Gaza this year, and described Israeli blocks on food and medical shipments as a 'sentence' for starving Palestinians.
The Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday at least 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes in the past 24 hours, including 16 people living in tents in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any incident or artillery in the area at that time.
A cruise liner carrying Israeli tourists has been forced to reroute to Cyprus after being turned away from the Greek island of Syros after a quayside protest over the Gaza war. About 1,600 Israeli passengers on board the Crown Iris were prevented from disembarking amid safety concerns when more than 300 demonstrators on the Cycladic isle made clear they were unwelcome over Israel's conduct of the war and treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. A large banner emblazoned with the words Stop the Genocide was held aloft alongside Palestinian flags.
Columbia University said on Tuesday it has issued various punishments, including expulsions and degree revocations, against various students involved in anti-Israel protests on campus. The sanctions, which a student group said targeted nearly 80 people, come as the New York institution negotiates with President Donald Trump's administration to restore $400m in cut federal funding.
Some Israeli far-right leaders held a public meeting on Tuesday to discuss redeveloping the Gaza Strip into a tourist-friendly 'riviera', as Palestinians face a worsening humanitarian crisis in the devastated territory. The meeting, titled 'The Riviera in Gaza: From Vision to Reality', was held in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, under the auspices of some of its most hardline members.
Syria said on Tuesday that it had launched investigations into reported extrajudicial killings in the country's Druze heartland, promising to punish perpetrators including any government-affiliated personnel after a week of sectarian bloodshed. The violence, which began on 13 July and ended with a weekend ceasefire, started with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes but soon escalated, killing more than 1,300 people, mostly Druze, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The US state department on Tuesday confirmed the death of a US citizen last week in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida, where hundreds of people have been reported killed in clashes. State department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Hosam Saraya, adding that the US was providing consular assistance to the family.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday there is a possibility of a renewed campaign against Iran, according to a statement from his office. He stressed the necessity of formulating an effective enforcement plan for the future to ensure that Iran does not restore its nuclear programme.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
44 minutes ago
- Reuters
Syria expected to hold parliamentary election in September, official says
July 27 (Reuters) - Syria is expected to hold its first parliamentary election under the new administration in September, the head of the electoral process told state news agency SANA on Sunday. Voting for the People's Assembly is expected to take place from September 15-20, added the official, Mohamed Taha.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Images of children starving in Gaza have shaken some world leaders out of inertia – but what will Labor do?
Images of emaciated, skeletal children in Gaza landed on news outlets' front pages last week. It seemed to shake some world leaders and ordinary citizens out of a stupor. It's a year and nine months since Israel began laying siege and raining devastation on Gaza, after the slaughter of Hamas' 7 October terror attacks. After 21 months of bombing and civilian death tolls now reported in the tens of thousands, a new word has begun appearing ever more prominently in media coverage. Famine. Not a famine driven by extreme weather, crop failure or pest infestation, but an entirely human-made famine. The type that could be fixed with the stroke of a pen, a bureaucratic shift, a political agreement. Sign up: AU Breaking News email It's why, half a world away in Australia, Anthony Albanese's government will enter its first full week of federal parliament under pressure, facing calls from outside and inside its ranks to do more. My colleague Benita Kolovos' exclusive on Monday, that Victorian Labor's state conference will probably back a series of motions urging the federal government to immediately recognise a Palestinian state and sanction Israel – expanding existing sanctions on two Israeli ministers – is the latest pressure point on Albanese and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, to do more, and faster. It's also a demonstration of the emotion of the party's rank-and-file members. The intervention of former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr on Friday, calling for immediate recognition of Palestine and sanctions against Israel's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, was significant. Former cabinet minister Ed Husic, Labor's most publicly thoughtful and compassionate voice on Gaza, said 'the time is now'. Their comments came two days after Labor condemned Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi for holding a sign reading 'sanction Israel now' during the opening of parliament. Albanese, Wong and the government say Australia is not a major player in the Middle East, that they have consistently called for adherence to international law, and have contributed large sums in aid – $100m, Wong said on Friday. All true. But according to Palestine supporters inside Labor, there is 'near unanimous' sentiment in party ranks for the government to move beyond statements to concrete actions of the kind it has so far downplayed. Even if it means leading or moving ahead of global sentiment. Wong joined more than two dozen countries last week, expressing horror at hundreds of Palestinians' deaths at aid sites. It was notable, then, that Albanese still felt the need to put out an extra statement, with stronger language, days later. On Sunday, Albanese went further again, explicitly accused Israel of breaching international law. That's not nothing. Noting those 'heartbreaking' pictures of starving children, he told Insiders: 'A one-year-old boy is not a Hamas fighter'. In the same breath, Albanese rejected 'imminently' recognising Palestine, placing conditions on such a shift – including US support – that seem months, if not years, away. But wheels are turning. There is growing outrage in Labor ranks about Gaza. The Victorian Labor motion is the latest of many, with more to come. The motion comes from Labor Friends of Palestine, an internal campaign group. It has circulated similar motions, supported by 80 (and climbing) local ALP branches, according to Peter Moss, a national co-convener. One of the latest, he tells me, is the Wentworth branch, the eastern Sydney electorate with one of Australia's highest concentrations of Jewish voters. Moss maintains there has 'never been a more urgent time to assert the rights of the Palestinian people'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Wong has said for some time Australia no longer sees Palestine's statehood as coming necessarily at the end of the peace process, which leaves open the door to recognition at any time. Albanese on Sunday, however, cautioned that US involvement 'is critical.' Still, backers say Australia wouldn't even be an outlier if it made recognition moves today. Carr said the French president, Emmanuel Macron's pledge to recognise Palestine should be enough for Australia, with no need to move in concert with the UK or US. He told me such a shift would win Albanese credit for foreign policy, for 'having a mind of our own'. It is true Albanese, Wong and Labor have spoken strongly in support of Palestinian civilians and international law, and given harsher criticism of Israel than many governments before. This has opened them to criticism from the opposition, Israel's own government and the screeching outrage machine of the right-wing press. Equally, for some, Labor haven't gone far enough. The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said: 'Words, while welcome, won't feed starving kids.' But sentiment has seemed to shift, albeit glacially, even inside the Coalition. After Wong's statement on Tuesday, the opposition could barely muster a word for the plight of starving Palestinians in Gaza. The shadow foreign minister, Michaelia Cash, took five paragraphs to mention the 'suffering of the people of Gaza', and another two before adding 'it is important that aid flows', in a statement otherwise nearly entirely devoted to criticising Hamas – a terrorist group Labor has condemned, said can have no role in the future governance of Gaza, and must return Israeli hostages. By Friday, Cash's statement at least opened with a concession of 'strong concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza'. Some in the Coalition are uneasy their positioning in recent days has not paid enough heed to the human-made catastrophe. But chalk that up to another issue where the opposition finds itself at a loss, dealing itself into irrelevancy. The greater issue is for Labor. On the back of a thumping election win and an energised party base, its members want the government to stand up, be bold and help set a global example. Albanese says Palestinian statehood won't come as a 'gesture', but on this issue, the party faithful have made it clear: words aren't enough.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Bowen: Israel's aid measures a gesture to allies horrified by Gaza starvation
Israel has responded to sustained and growing international condemnation that it is responsible for starvation in Gaza by announcing a series of measures the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said would 'improve the humanitarian response.'It is allowing airdrops of aid, carrying out the first one itself during the night and allowing the United Arab Emirates air force to follow with another later on IDF also announced that it would allow a 'tactical pause in military activity' in some areas and set up 'designated humanitarian corridors… to refute the false claim on international starvation.'Hamas has condemned the moves as a "deception". Israel, it said, was "whitewashing its image before the world".Follow live updates Israel later carried out an airstrike during the 'tactical pause.' Reports from the scene say a mother called Wafaa Harara and her four children, Sara, Areej, Judy and Iyad were Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, are already the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court last year, accused of joint criminal responsibility for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts". Netanyahu, Gallant and the Israeli state deny the Israel continues to insist it is not responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and does not impose restrictions on aid entering Gaza, those claims are not accepted by its close allies in Europe, or the United Nations and other agencies active in new measures might be a tacit admission by the Israelis that they need to do likely they are a gesture to allies who have issued strong statements blaming Israel for starvation in latest, on Friday 25 July, from Britain, France and Germany was stark."We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and urgently allow the UN and humanitarian NGOs to carry out their work in order to take action against starvation. Israel must uphold its obligations under international humanitarian law."Israel followed a total blockade of all aid into Gaza with restrictions on the approval of the contents and movement of aid convoys. With the Americans, it has also set up a new system of distributing aid through the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) intended to replace the aid network run by the United Nations. Israel claims that Hamas stole aid from the UN system. The UN says it is still waiting for the Israelis to back their claims with UN and other agencies will not cooperate with the GHF system, which they say is inhumane and militarised. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been shot dead trying to reach the GHF's four sites, according to the UN. The GHF operates in zones controlled by the IDF and it deploys armed American security personnel at its sites.A retired US special forces colonel who worked for the GHF in Gaza told the BBC that he saw American colleagues and IDF soldiers opening fire on civilians. Both deny they have targeted Whittall, the head in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) has already condemned the methods used by the GHF. Israel told him his visa would not be renewed after he posted on social media a month ago that the GHF system had brought to Gaza "conditions created to kill… what we are seeing is carnage. It is weaponised hunger. It is forced displacement. It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive. It appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life".After Israel announced its new measures, Whittall told the BBC that "the humanitarian situation in Gaza has never been worse".He said for Israel's new measures to change matters for the better it would have to reduce the time it takes to allow trucks to transit the crossings into Gaza and improve the routes provided by the IDF for the convoys to would also need to provide "meaningful assurances that the people gathering to take food off the back of the trucks won't be shot by Israeli forces".Israel released grainy footage of a transport plane dropping pallets of aid into Gaza. Lines of parachutes billowed out the back of the aircraft in the dark of the night. The IDF said it had delivered seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and tinned other wars I have seen aid being dropped, both from the aircraft themselves and close up on the ground as it dropping aid is an act of desperation. It can also look good on television, and spread a feel-good factor that something, at last, is being is a crude process, that will not on its own do much to end hunger in Gaza. Only a ceasefire and an unrestricted, long term aid operation can do that. Even big transport planes do not carry as much as a small convoy of Iraqi Kurdistan, after the 1991 Gulf War, the US, UK and others dropped aid from C-130 transport aircraft, mostly army rations, sleeping bags and surplus winter uniforms to tens of thousands trying to survive in the open in mud and snow high in the mountains on Iraq's border with Turkey. I flew with them and watched British and American airmen dropping aid from the rear cargo ramps of the planes several thousand feet above the people who needed was welcome enough. But when a few days later when I managed to reach the improvised camps in the mountains, I saw young men running into minefields to get aid that landed there. Some were killed and maimed in explosions. I saw families killed when heavy pallets dropped on their Mostar was besieged during the war in Bosnia in 1993, I saw pallets of American military 'meals ready to eat', dropped from high altitude, scattered all over the east side of the city that was being constantly shelled. Some aid pallets crashed through roofs that had somehow not been destroyed by artillery involved in relief operations regard dropping aid from the sky as a last resort. They use it when any other access is impossible. That's not the case in Gaza. A short drive north is Ashdod, Israel's modern container port. A few more hours away is the Jordanian border, which has been used regularly as a supply line for aid for was one of the world's most densely populated places before the war when the population of more than two million Palestinians had access to the entire strip. In British terms, the Gaza Strip is slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight. Compared to American cities, it's roughly the size of Philadelphia or Israel has forced most of Gaza's people into a tiny area on the southern coast, amounting to around 17% of Gaza's land. Most of them live in densely packed tents. It is not clear if there is even an open space for despatchers high in the sky to aim of aid dropped by parachute often land far from the people who need pallet will be fought over by desperate men trying to get food for their families, and by criminal elements who will want to sell it for profit.
