Netanyahu Claims No One In Gaza Is Starving. Trump, UN, Witnesses Disagree
President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagrees with Netanyahu's claim of no starvation in Gaza, noting the images emerging of emaciated people: "Those children look very hungry."
After international pressure, Israel over the weekend announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures meant to allow more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The UN has described it as a one-week scale-up of aid, and Israel has not said how long these latest measures would last.
"This aid, delivered in this way, is an insult to the Palestinian people," said Hasan Al-Zalaan, who was at the site of an airdrop as some fought over the supplies and crushed cans of chickpeas littered the ground.
Israel asserts that Hamas is the reason aid isn't reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its militants of siphoning off aid to support its rule in the territory. The UN denies that looting of aid is systematic and that it lessens or ends entirely when enough aid is allowed to enter Gaza.
Here's what we know
The World Health Organization said Sunday there have been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of 5 - up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year.
Gaza's Health Ministry puts the number even higher, reporting 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes: 24 children and 58 adults. It said Monday that 14 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is headed by medical professionals and is seen by the UN as the most reliable source of data on casualties. UN agencies also often confirm numbers through other partners on the ground.
The Patient's Friends Hospital, the main emergency center for malnourished kids in northern Gaza, says this month it saw for the first time malnutrition deaths in children who had no preexisting conditions. Some adults who died suffered from such illnesses as diabetes or had heart or kidney ailments made worse by starvation, according to Gaza medical officials.
The WHO also says acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month, reaching nearly one in five children under 5 years old, and has doubled in central and southern Gaza. The UN says Gaza's only four specialized treatment centers for malnutrition are "overwhelmed."
The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned of famine for months in Gaza but has not formally declared one, citing the lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory.
The measures announced by Israel late Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three heavily populated areas, so that UN trucks can more more easily distribute food.
Still, UN World Food Program spokesperson Martin Penner said the agency's 55 trucks of aid that entered Gaza on Monday via the crossings of Zikim and Kerem Shalom were looted by starving people before they reached WFP warehouses.
Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground. Israel's military says 48 food packages were dropped Sunday and Monday.
Palestinians say they want a full return to the UN-led aid distribution system that was in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May. Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach those food distribution hubs or while crowding around entering aid trucks. Israel's military says it has fired warning shots to disperse threats.
The UN and partners say that the best way to bring food into Gaza is by truck, and they have called repeatedly for Israel to loosen restrictions on their entry. A truck carries roughly 19 tons of supplies.
Israel's military says that as of July 21, 95,435 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the war began. That's an average of 146 trucks per day, and far below the 500 to 600 trucks per day that the UN says are needed.
The rate has sometimes been as low as half of that for several months at a time. Nothing went in for 2 1/2 months starting in March because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza.
The UN says that delivering the aid that is allowed into Gaza has become increasingly difficult.
When aid enters, it is left just inside the border in Gaza, and the UN must get Israeli military permission to send trucks to pick it up. But the UN says the military has denied or impeded just over half the movement requests for its trucks in the past three months.
If the UN succeeds in picking up the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs swarm the convoys and strip them of supplies. The Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that stopped after Israel targeted them with airstrikes.
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The Wire
44 minutes ago
- The Wire
Starve, Silence, Disable: New Weapons in Israel's Genocidal War
Rights This is not 'collateral damage'. It is the deliberate, systematic creation of disability. An injured man is taken to the Al-Ahli hospital following overnight Israeli army airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, in Gaza City, on March 18. Photo: AP/PTI. "Give me a voice of thunder that I may hurl imprecation upon this cannibal, whose gruesome hunger spares neither woman nor child." – Rabindranath Tagore In Gaza, the cannibal devours relentlessly – its hunger insatiable, its thirst for blood unquenched. The savagery unfolding is unprecedented, more brutal than anything recent memory can bear. Its crimes are so grotesque that one would be tempted to draw parallels with those tried at Nuremberg. The thunderous plea of Tagore seems to pale when faced with the indescribable and unsurmountable suffering that Gazans are subjected to. One must be a heartless monster to remain unmoved by the cries of children undergoing amputations without anaesthesia, lying on blood-soaked floors in overcrowded spaces. Writing in The Hindu of October 5, 2024, Farhat Mantoo of MSF-Doctors without Borders, South Asia Chapter, narrates the story of 15-year-old Abdul, who ventured out on February 10, 2024, to surprise his mum with some 'salt or flour' amid the devastation in northern Gaza. As he scoured abandoned homes, he was grievously injured during an Israeli airstrike. Abdul crawled for more than an hour before help arrived and he was taken to a hospital. With hospitals overwhelmed with casualties and critical supplies lacking, doctors were forced to perform surgery on Abdul without anesthesia. The situation has far worsened now. Denied wheelchairs and other assistive devices and robbed of caregivers, the disabled are forced to flee from one bombardment zone to another on foot – many of them crawling, dragging their bodies maimed by the violence. Homes, hospitals, rehabilitation centres – any building in the path of the Israeli Defence Forces – are reduced to rubble. This is not "collateral damage." It is the deliberate, systematic creation of disability. As a powerful submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) to its hearing in August 2025, argues, this is the "mass production of disability." The submission, by Women Enabled International (WEI) endorsed by several global organisations, including India's National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), documents an appalling reality: "Thousands have been made newly disabled due to amputations, traumatic injuries, psychological trauma, and the denial of essential medical care." According to a UNICEF/WHO update in early 2025, between 3,105 and 4,050 limb amputations were reported since October 7, 2023, in Gaza. Approximately 25% of these victims were children, equating to around 780 to 1,000 child amputees. A May 2025 report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and Christian Aid Ireland cites the total number of amputations as 4,700, with 850 of those being children. The bombs maim bodies; the siege prevents treatment; trauma decays the spirit. Disability here is not an unforeseen tragedy – it is an intended outcome, a weapon in the arsenal of genocide. Oldest logic of genocide: Target the disabled first What is unfolding in Gaza is not an isolated tragedy – it is part of a grim historical legacy. In 1994, in Rwanda, persons with disabilities were locked in churches and burned alive. In Srebrenica (Bosnia, 1995), the elderly and disabled were abandoned to die. But the most horrific was what happened in Nazi Germany where disabled individuals were the first to be exterminated, targeted under the concocted logic of racial hygiene. Under Aktion T4, an estimated 2,00,000 disabled individuals were annihilated. This program, which began in 1939, was a precursor to the Holocaust, marking the first phase in the Nazis' campaign of "racial purification". The disabled were considered "unworthy of life', a 'burden on earth' and were sent to gas chambers before the mass slaughter of Jews and other "undesirables". The submission to the CRPD Committee notes: 'History has shown that persons with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by genocides, yet they remain perpetually excluded from protection, recognition and remembrance.' In Gaza, disabled bodies are not mere casualties of war – they are actively targeted. Bombs destroy rehabilitation centres; sieges prevent access to wheelchairs; orders to displace people render the disabled incapable of fleeing. Starvation as a weapon of reproductive genocide The submission bears witness to horrors that words can scarcely capture: "Mothers must deliver babies without anesthesia. Doctors use cellphone flashlights to conduct operations. Mothers who are starving cannot produce milk. Babies die prematurely because there is no fuel for incubators." For women with disabilities, this nightmare is compounded. They are unable to flee, deprived of privacy, and at heightened risk of sexual violence. Reproductive care is denied, amplifying the terror. The Palestinian Feminist Collective has named this for what it is: 'reproductive genocide'. Occupation as a machine of disablement Even before the current onslaught, Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestine was a monstrous machine producing disability. Settler violence, home demolitions, military checkpoints and apartheid-like healthcare systems have been a form of daily warfare for Palestinians. The current destruction only deepens this crisis: "Disability-based dispossession is entrenched by the occupation. Impairment is worsened through violence, deprivation, and denial of access to care, education, and freedom of movement.' In the West Bank, disabled women and girls live under constant threat of settler violence. Hospitals are either blocked or destroyed, further exacerbating the ongoing crisis. The genocide is not only impacting people with disabilities, especially women, girls and gender diverse people with disabilities, in unimaginable ways, but the genocide has also been a mass disabling event. It has produced large scale disability – both visible and invisible. An unending mental health crisis In Gaza, mental health has collapsed under relentless siege. Continuous bombardment, loss of loved ones, forced displacement, and witnessing unspeakable horrors have pushed entire communities into collective trauma. Children and adults alike wake screaming from nightmares that never end; parents mourn silently, numb with grief. The destruction of hospitals and the shortage of mental health professionals mean that psychological wounds go untreated, deepening despair. Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress have become widespread, yet there is no safe space to heal. Here, trauma is not a moment – it is daily life, passed from one generation to the next in an unbroken cycle. Numbers that the world refuses to see A report in Al Jazeera, dated July 24, 2025, records the death of over 59,000 Palestinians and injuries to 1,43,000 in Israeli attacks. According to Harvard Dataverse, an estimated 3,77,000 people have "disappeared," buried under rubble and left uncounted. Among them are the disabled, who are left to die because they could not escape. "Due to the actions of Israel, it is close to impossible to obtain accurate and timely data,' the submission warns. Erasure, too, is a weapon. Profiting over bodies The economy of genocide – as described by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese – is built on the dispossession and disablement of Palestinians and disability justice helps us understand and name how war, surveillance, and militarism profit from the destruction of bodies and communities. International arms sales, border militarisation and the blocking of humanitarian aid are capitalist ventures that produce and sustain disability on a mass scale. Israel's bombardment of Gaza serves as a live testing ground for AI-guided weapons, surveillance technologies and riot control tools – all of which are then exported worldwide including to India. As the submission notes: "War, surveillance, and militarism profit from the destruction of bodies and communities." From Nazi doctors conducting experiments on disabled prisoners to modern arms manufacturers boasting of "battle-tested" weapons, genocide and capitalism have always walked hand in hand. Not to speak of the 'Riviera of the Middle East' that someone is dreaming of. Convention betrayed Israel ratified the CRPD, thereby obligating itself to protect persons with disabilities, particularly in conflict. The Fourth Geneva Convention demands medical care and protection for civilians. Yet, hospitals are bombed, aid is blocked and disability services are wiped out. "Non-compliance with these obligations may constitute grave breaches of international law and warrants independent investigation and accountability." Yet, bombs continue to fall, and words like "proportionality" fill press releases. How many more? In Gaza, children wake to find their limbs gone. Mothers bury babies – premature and stillborn. Disabled women crawl across a wasteland where homes and rehabilitation centres once stood. From Aktion T4 to Srebrenica, from Rwanda to Gaza, genocide begins by marking some lives as disposable. "Persons with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by violence yet are consistently excluded from protection and remembrance." History asks us: how many more limbs, wombs, and futures must be shattered before we say enough? The silence that speaks: India's disability movement and Gaza The Indian disability movement has been strikingly silent on the unprecedented suffering of disabled Palestinians in Gaza. While global disability organisations have condemned Israel's deliberate targeting of persons with disabilities and joined calls for a ceasefire, most prominent Indian disability groups continue to look away. This silence is disturbing. It not only betrays the foundational principles of the disability rights movement – supposedly built on the rejection of hierarchies of whose lives matter – but also echoes the position of India's current ruling establishment to side with Israel. Many have been unequivocal supporters of the neoliberal trajectory and stand compromised. The disability community, which has historically stood against state violence and exclusion, now risks complicity by omission. Moreover, by refusing to engage with the mass production of disability in Gaza – children losing limbs in bombardments, denial of assistive devices, starvation used as a weapon – the movement distances itself from global disability justice. In doing so, it inadvertently affirms an unequal valuation of lives: solidarity, it seems, is not extended to Palestinians – disabled or otherwise. This selective empathy undermines both credibility and conscience, exposing a silence that itself becomes a form of violence and complicity. Muralidharan is general secretary, National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD). The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, U.S. envoy visits hostage family protest
Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire on Saturday (August 2025) as Palestinians endured severe risks in their search for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid on Saturday (August 2025) morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw many others lying on the ground bleeding. 'It's the same daily episode,' Mr. Youssef said. In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four sites, the GHF media office said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites'. 'Worst-case scenario of famine' The episode came a day after U.S. officials visited one site and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called GHF's distribution 'an incredible feat'. International outrage has mounted as the group's efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy. 'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,' Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously.' The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in the besieged enclave. Israel's nearly 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people. Killing at aid distribution sites From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Israel and GHF have said they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, though on Friday said it was working to make the routes under its control safer. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday (August 2, 2025), including three whose bodies were transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded. Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The dead include two brothers and a relative, who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis. The Gaza health ministry's ambulance and emergency service said an Israeli strike hit a family house in an area between the towns of Zawaida and Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their three children. Another strike hit a tent close to the gate of a closed prison where the displaced have sheltered in Khan Younis, killing a mother and her daughter, they said. The hospital said Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid near the newly constructed Morag corridor in Rafah and between Rafah and Khan Younis. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes or deaths near the aid sites. Hostage families protest to end war Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, families of Israeli hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week. U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them a day after visiting Gaza and a week after walking away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, around 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. Israeli media hasn't broadcast the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed for the release of a photograph showing him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. After viewing the video, Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed top Israeli officials and demanded they meet with her. "They broke my child, I want him home now,' Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. 'Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out.' Hostage families and their supporters protesting in Tel Aviv called on Israel's government to make a deal to end the war, imploring them to "stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels'. 'Do the right thing and just do it now,' Lior Chorev ,the Hostages Family Forum's Chief Strategy Officer said. Airdrops expand despite limited impact To circumvent restrictions on aid trucks crossing overland into Gaza, additional countries joined the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating parcels being dropped from the skies. Alongside Israel, several European countries announced plans this week to join airdrop efforts, though most acknowledge the strategy is woefully insufficient. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops — which are highly costly, insufficient; inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,' Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. 'Let's go back to what works; let us do our job.' The recent war on Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
News18
2 hours ago
- News18
Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, US envoy visits hostage family protest
Deir al-Balah(Gaza Strip), Aug 2 (AP) Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire on Saturday as Palestinians endured severe risks searching for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw others lying on the ground bleeding. 'It's the same daily episode," Youssef said. In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four facilities, GHF said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites." The episode came a day after US officials visited one site and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the distribution 'an incredible feat." International outrage has mounted as the group's efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy. 'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat," Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously." The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine" in the besieged enclave. Israel's nearly 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people. Seven Palestinians died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said on Saturday. They include a child, it said in a statement, bringing total deaths among children from causes related to malnutrition in Gaza to 93 since the war began. The ministry said 76 adults in Gaza have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults. From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed near GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel 's military has said it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, though on Friday said it was working to make the routes under its control safer. Israel and GHF have said that the toll has been exaggerated. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded. Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The dead include two brothers and a relative, who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis. The health ministry's ambulance and emergency service said an Israeli strike hit a family house between the towns of Zawaida and Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their three children. Another strike hit a tent close to the gate of a closed prison where the displaced have sheltered in Khan Younis, killing a mother and her daughter, they said. The hospital said Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians who were among crowds awaiting aid near the newly constructed Morag corridor in Rafah and between Rafah and Khan Younis. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes or gunfire near the aid sites. Its top general, meanwhile, warned Saturday that 'combat will continue without rest" if hostages weren't freed. Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said Israel's military would adapt to 'place Hamas under increasing pressure." Hostage families push Israel to cut deal In Tel Aviv, families of hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week. US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them, a week after quitting ceasefire talks, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted by Hamas-led militants, around 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. Israeli media hasn't broadcast the videos, calling them propaganda, but the family of 21-year-old Rom Braslavski allowed the release of a photograph showing him visibly emaciated in an unknown location. Tami Braslavski, his mother, blamed top Israeli officials and demanded they meet with her. 'They broke my child, I want him home now," Braslavski told Ynet on Thursday. 'Look at him: Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out." Protesters called on Israel's government to make a deal to end the war, imploring them to 'stop this nightmare and bring them out of the tunnels" 'Do the right thing and just do it now," said Lior Chorev, chief strategy officer of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Airdrops expand despite limited impact Alongside Israel, several European countries announced plans this week to join the Jordan-led coalition orchestrating airdropping parcels, though most acknowledge the strategy remains deeply inadequate. 'If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings," Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X on Saturday. 'Let's go back to what works & let us do our job." The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. (AP) RD RD (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: August 02, 2025, 18:00 IST News agency-feeds Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, US envoy visits hostage family protest Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
