Dozens of people waiting for aid among 94 killed in Gaza, authorities say
Dozens of people were killed in air strikes that pounded the Strip on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including 15 people killed in strikes that hit tents in the sprawling Muwasi zone, where many displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
A separate strike on a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people also killed 15.
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Gaza's Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 57,000, including 223 missing people who have been declared dead, since the war began on October 7 2023.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.
The deaths come as Israel and Hamas inch closer to a possible ceasefire that would end the 21-month war.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.
But Hamas's response, which emphasised its demand that the war end, raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialise into an actual pause in fighting.
Smoke from an Israeli bombardment billows over the Gaza Strip (Ariel Schalit/AP)
The Israeli military blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas. The military said it targeted Hamas militants and rocket launchers in northern Gaza that launched rockets towards Israel on Wednesday.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
The war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting.
More than 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, leaving hundreds of thousands of people hungry.
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ITV News
5 hours ago
- ITV News
'A rocket fell on us': Girl, 10, fighting for her life after strike on children in Gaza
Lyan has already lost her mother, brother, sister and grandparents since the start of the war, and her father is now fighting for his life in hospital. In the intensive care unit at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza, our cameraman filmed ten-year-old Lyan lying unconscious after several surgeries to remove shrapnel from her body. Her aunt was stroking her head, praying and repeating the words ''May God save you." ITV News previously reported the moment when Lyan and three other girls were rushed into the hospital after a drone strike on their tent in Khan Younis. The rest were discharged with minor injuries, but Lyan had internal bleeding and extensive blast wounds to her head, chest and legs. Her father is fighting for his life elsewhere in the hospital; she has already lost her mother, brother, sister and grandparents since the start of the war. Her aunt, Ebtisam, is one of her only surviving relatives. She told us they were in an area the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had declared a safe area, but she said in reality, nowhere is safe anymore. It was just before 1am; the children were all asleep, and suddenly there was a huge blast. Ebtisam says there were no armed groups or resistance in the area, only sleeping children. With talk of a ceasefire that could come as early as next week, the situation on the ground in Gaza is increasingly dangerous and desperate. Locally run aid stations have become chaotic, as food shortages have worsened and hunger has taken hold of the enclave. There is not enough to go around, but most believe it is safer jostling in line for what will be only a small tub full of food than risking your life going to one of the international distribution centres. New footage, reportedly leaked by two American contractors, has provided the clearest evidence yet that Palestinians are being intentionally shot at. In a series of videos shared with the Associated Press, first you can see that live bullets and teargas are fired into the hungry crowd, then you hear a man with an American accent shout 'I think you hit one,' followed by the celebratory confirmation 'Hell yeah, boy". At the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Special Rapporteur has accused Israel of genocide. Francesca Albanese said: 'It's so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is nothing else but a death trap engineered to kill or force the flight of a starved, bombarded, emaciated population marked for elimination.' The US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation insists there have been no injuries at any of its aid sites and says it is operated by experienced security professionals. The IDF has admitted there have been deaths at and near aid distribution centres, but denies that unarmed civilians have been directly targeted. Our cameraman in Gaza filmed the funeral of Yousef Alahkras, whose family says was killed trying to get them a bag of flour. His mother fell to her knees and cried that there is no humanity left in Gaza, there is only humiliation and death. At the forefront of people's minds in Gaza is not the ceasefire, it is surviving all this war throws at them and hoping their families will live to see it end.
NBC News
5 hours ago
- NBC News
‘A slap in the face': Georgia and Arkansas' Medicaid work rules may preview the road ahead
President Donald Trump is expected to sign into law on Friday his sprawling domestic policy bill, which includes nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. Dubbed the 'big, beautiful bill,' the new legislation will extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts and make up for them in part by slashing federal Medicaid funding, introducing copays for some services and — for the first time — implementing nationwide Medicaid work requirements. The final version of the bill didn't include an estimate of coverage losses, but an earlier Congressional Budget Office report projected that about 11 million people could lose their health coverage and become uninsured by 2034 because of the program cuts. Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the states, which usually mandate that applicants meet certain criteria, such as low income, disability or caregiving status. 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Kendall Rogers, 40, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, is currently looking for a job after losing his Medicaid coverage earlier this year due to the state's work requirements, according to his mom, Trudy Rogers, 59. The change means Trudy now has to take care of herself for long portions of the day. She has fibromyalgia and nerve problems in her back that make it difficult for her to get around. Kendall was caring for her nearly full time, Trudy said, but Georgia's work requirements don't offer exemptions for caregivers of older adults. She called the new requirements 'an insult not only to him, but to me.' 'Because now he's forced to go out and look for work and I need him to stay around the house,' she said. Covered in red tape To justify the cuts, Republicans have argued that they're not taking Medicaid from those who are rightfully entitled to it — such as, they say, single mothers or the disabled — but from 'young, able-bodied men' who they say are abusing the system. 'If you clean that up and short it up, you save a lot of money, and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day,' House Speaker Mike Johnson said in April. But as seen in Georgia and Arkansas, that's not who is largely impacted. Cynthia Gibson, director of the Georgia Legal Services Program's Health Law Unit, which helps appeal Medicaid denials, said that many people in the state lose coverage not because they aren't working, but because they aren't aware of the new rules or face administrative issues like missed paperwork or not receiving notices. Others, like Kendall, are caring for family members but don't qualify for exemptions. Likewise, in Arkansas, only 3% or 4% of the people on Medicaid in 2018 weren't working and did not qualify for the exemptions under the state program, said Dr. Benjamin Sommers, a physician and health economist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Sommers published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019 looking at the impact of Arkansas' work requirements. For the other roughly 96% of people on Medicaid in the state, his research found about40% were working the required 80 hours a month under the state program. The rest either had medical conditions that prevented them from working or had other responsibilities, such as school or caring for a family member. Implementing work requirements also didn't result in a higher employment rate — one of the arguments used by Arkansas officials in favor of the new work rules. 'Most people, almost everybody, was already doing what [the state] wanted them to do,' he said. Very few were 'the proverbial, on the couch, video game story that we're hearing from some of the supporters.' Most commonly, Gibson said, people aren't actually aware that they've lost coverage until they go see their doctor. 'And that creates kind of a panic,' she said. 'Sometimes they may have something really important scheduled that the doctors won't do when they run their insurance and find out they no longer have coverage.' Gibson said the people most often impacted by the work requirement are those in noncorporate jobs, including independent workers — like Uber drivers or delivery workers — who don't receive regular pay stubs and can't meet Georgia's work verification requirements. Others affected include people with certain disabilities that don't qualify for exemptions as well as caregivers of children or elderly relatives. The costs of not having coverage People who lose coverage often avoid going to the doctor or getting medical care unless it's an emergency, because they don't want to accumulate debt, she said. 'They just don't get treatment, they don't go to the doctor,' she said. Heather Payne, a 53-year-old from Dalton, Georgia, couldn't avoid medical care after she had a series of debilitating strokes in 2022. Unable to work, she was told she didn't qualify for an Affordable Care Act plan and didn't qualify for Georgia's Medicaid program because she was a childless adult. She later enrolled in classes to become a nurse practitioner — a career she could pursue despite her disability. By that point, the state's work requirement had gone into effect. However, Payne was told she still didn't qualify for Medicaid because she wasn't taking enough credit hours. She couldn't afford to take more. To pay for her medical bills, she burned through her $40,000 in savings and is now in collections for tens of thousands of dollars. 'When you have a problem, there's no help for you,' she said. 'It makes you feel as though society doesn't care what happens to you.' Dimitris Terrell, 49, of Clarkston, also worries her 24-year-old son, Justin Anderson, could start to accumulate debt following changes to Georgia's Medicaid program. 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NBC News
6 hours ago
- NBC News
RFK Jr.'s warnings about sperm counts fuel doomsday claims about male fertility
It's not uncommon for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to mention sperm counts when he makes a public appearance. In recent television interviews, political speeches and congressional hearings, Kennedy has repeatedly claimed that teenage boys today have half the sperm that men in their 60s do — a stat that's not exactly accurate. Kennedy has cited the talking point as evidence of a broader health crisis in the U.S. 'We have fertility rates that are just spiraling. A teenager today, an American teenager, has less testosterone than a 68-year-old man. Sperm counts are down 50%,' he told Fox News' Jesse Watters in April, adding: 'It's an existential problem.' Contrary to Kennedy's claims, sperm counts decline with age, so young men have much higher counts than older men. And data about sperm counts in teen boys largely does not exist. Some researchers contend that men's overall sperm counts are lower than they were generations ago, based mostly on two papers published in the last decade. Others say there's no convincing evidence of the trend. And many agree that even if sperm counts are declining, it does not amount to a full-blown fertility crisis. 'This is a very contentious issue in our field, and for every paper that you find that suggests a decline and raises an alarm for this issue, there's another paper that says that the numbers aren't changing, and that there's no cause for concern,' said Dr. Scott Lundy, a reproductive urologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said Kennedy is 'sounding the alarm on a public health issue others are too timid, or too politically cautious, to confront.' The secretary's warning feeds on a burgeoning narrative that men today face a fundamental threat to their fertility. Similar claims have been spread by various wellness influencers, tech startups and young men on social media. Young men concerned about a decline in virility have opted to freeze their sperm, abstain from sex or undergo testosterone replacement therapy. A 2022 study found that 'semen retention' was the most popular men's health subject on TikTok and Instagram. Meanwhile, adherents of the 'pro-natalist' movement have argued that more families should be having children to compensate for a decline in fertility and birth rates in the U.S. The most prominent figure among them, Elon Musk, has cited the declining birth rate as an omen of humanity's collapse. Researchers who study male fertility say the reality is far more complicated and little cause for panic. Fertility and birth rates in the U.S. are declining, in part, because people are choosing to have fewer children or delaying having kids until later in life. Though some men do struggle to have kids, in many cases the issue can be corrected through medical interventions or lifestyle changes. A decadeslong debate In 1993, scientist Louis Guillette shocked Congress when he testified at a hearing that 'every man sitting in this room today is half the man his grandfather was.' Guillette was referring to a generational decline in sperm count. A year before his testimony, a review of papers published from 1938 to 1991 determined that the average sperm count had fallen around 50%. But many researchers have since found flaws in the review — among them, that it included relatively little data from the first few decades of the analysis, the men in the studies were evaluated using different methods and the data analysis did not account for the fact that many men's sperm counts fall within a lower range. 'The paper was widely, wildly cited,' but 'the statistics were not solid,' said Dolores Lamb, who researches male infertility at Children's Mercy Kansas City. In a follow-up review of studies published from 1992 to 2013, eight studies showed a decline in semen quality, 21 showed no change or an increase, and six showed ambiguous or conflicting results. Based on that, Lamb said, 'the preponderance of the data suggests that there was no decline.' In 2021, reproductive epidemiologist Shanna Swan reignited the debate with her book 'Count Down,' which warned of falling sperm counts 'imperiling the future of the human race.' A paper Swan and her co-authors published in 2017 determined that from 1973 to 2011, sperm counts declined by 52% in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. A follow-up analysis in 2022 showed a similar trend worldwide. In an interview with The Guardian, Swan said her work implied that the median sperm count could reach zero by 2045. The research was picked up by men's rights groups, which pointed to it as evidence that men were losing their masculinity. It even inspired a viral publicity stunt to raise awareness about a possible future where people couldn't reproduce: A crowd gathered to watch sperm cells race under a microscope. HHS' Nixon said the 2017 and 2022 papers support Kennedy's claims about declining reproductive health. 'A growing body of peer-reviewed research shows significant declines in sperm counts over the past decades, and pretending this isn't a serious trend is irresponsible,' he said. 'The data is real, the stakes are high and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.' Lamb said the analyses from Swan and her co-authors had a major weakness in their methodology. They assumed that laboratories in different parts of the world were collecting and testing semen in the same way, she said, when in fact the methods likely varied. Swan stood by her team's results, telling NBC News in an email that they accounted for differences in methodologies across studies, as well as the challenges of getting accurate sperm counts. Lundy, of the Cleveland Clinic, said measuring sperm counts can be hard to do consistently. The count itself can go up and down depending on the frequency of ejaculation, time of year, or whether someone is injured or has a fever. His analysis last year found a subtle decline in sperm count among men in the U.S. from 1970 to 2018, but one that likely wouldn't impact fertility in real life. 'What it has done is showed that there's no cause for widespread panic for the typical U.S. male,' Lundy said. The role of diet and environment Researchers who believe sperm counts are declining said it might be influenced by two factors: obesity and environmental chemicals. 'We know that obesity is one of the strongest predictors of serum testosterone, and also to a lesser extent, of sperm counts,' said Jorge Chavarro, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In particular, he said, obesity can decrease the secretion of key hormones in the brain that regulate reproduction in both men and women. A 2023 study also found an association between exposure to pesticides and significantly lower sperm concentrations. Pesticides 'can imitate or interfere with naturally occurring hormones, and those hormones are necessary for the production of healthy sperm,' said Melissa Perry, the study's author and dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University. Kennedy has blamed both factors for falling sperm counts in the U.S., but some researchers say it's too soon to draw a link to national or worldwide trends. Vaping, cigarette smoking and binge drinking can also decrease sperm counts. (Research on marijuana use is mixed, with one study suggesting it can increase sperm counts and another finding the opposite.) Testosterone replacement therapy — a treatment that has exploded in popularity among young men looking to feel more energized or to increase their sex drive — can also shut off sperm production entirely. 'Men on testosterone are almost uniformly azoospermic and totally infertile, and sometimes that is only partially reversible if they've been on high-dose testosterone for many years,' Lundy said. Kennedy himself told Newsmax in 2023 that he takes testosterone replacement as part of an 'anti-aging protocol.' Most doctors say the treatment should be reserved for people with a medical condition and is not meant to counteract the normal aging process or increase vitality in young men. What about fertility? While sperm count can influence fertility, it's not the only factor. The shape and movement of sperm can also have an effect, since slow or misshapen sperm can have trouble reaching or fertilizing an egg. Swollen veins in the scrotum called varicoceles can play a role, too. 'If you lined up 100 men who are having fertility problems, about 35% or 36% would have varicoceles,' said Dr. Stanton Honig, a urology professor at Yale School of Medicine. 'That's one of the most treatable, reversible causes of male factor infertility.' Honig said doctors tend to get concerned when sperm counts fall below 15 million sperm per milliliter of semen, or less than 31% of sperm being mobile. But even then, a suboptimal sperm count doesn't necessarily mean an inability to reproduce. 'You have to get to pretty low sperm concentration levels before you start seeing an impact on a couple's ability to become pregnant,' Chavarro said. Even men with high sperm counts may struggle to have kids. Up to half of male infertility cases have an unknown cause, according to a 2007 study. Lundy said the issue deserves more attention to better understand men's health — not because of any fears about humanity dying out. 'This is not the end of our species as we know it,' he said.
