Israeli forces kills over 20 aid-seekers in Gaza as Israeli minister prays at flashpoint holy site
Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts have warned is facing famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive.
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Winnipeg Free Press
15 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Scientists say they have solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say they have at last solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars off the Pacific coast of North America in a decade-long epidemic. Sea stars – often known as starfish – typically have five arms and some species sport up to 24 arms. They range in color from solid orange to tapestries of orange, purple, brown and green. Starting in 2013, a mysterious sea star wasting disease sparked a mass die-off from Mexico to Alaska. The epidemic has devastated more than 20 species and continues today. Worst hit was a species called the sunflower sea star, which lost around 90% of its population in the outbreak's first five years. 'It's really quite gruesome,' said marine disease ecologist Alyssa Gehman at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, Canada, who helped pinpoint the cause. Healthy sea stars have 'puffy arms sticking straight out,' she said. But the wasting disease causes them to grow lesions and 'then their arms actually fall off.' The culprit? Bacteria that has also infected shellfish, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The findings 'solve a long-standing question about a very serious disease in the ocean,' said Rebecca Vega Thurber, a marine microbiologist at University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the study. It took more than a decade for researchers to identify the cause of the disease, with many false leads and twists and turns along the way. Early research hinted the cause might be a virus, but it turned out the densovirus that scientists initially focused on was actually a normal resident inside healthy sea stars and not associated with disease, said Melanie Prentice of the Hakai Institute, co-author of the new study. Other efforts missed the real killer because researchers studied tissue samples of dead sea stars that no longer contained the bodily fluid that surrounds the organs. But the latest study includes detailed analysis of this fluid, called coelomic fluid, where the bacteria Vibrio pectenicida were found. 'It's incredibly difficult to trace the source of so many environmental diseases, especially underwater,' said microbiologist Blake Ushijima of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, who was not involved in the research. He said the detective work by this team was 'really smart and significant.' Now that scientists know the cause, they have a better shot at intervening to help sea stars. Prentice said that scientists could potentially now test which of the remaining sea stars are still healthy — and consider whether to relocate them, or breed them in captivity to later transplant them to areas that have lost almost all their sunflower sea stars. Scientists may also test if some populations have natural immunity, and if treatments like probiotics may help boost immunity to the disease. Such recovery work is not only important for sea stars, but for entire Pacific ecosystems because healthy starfish gobble up excess sea urchins, researchers say. Wednesdays What's next in arts, life and pop culture. Sunflower sea stars 'look sort of innocent when you see them, but they eat almost everything that lives on the bottom of the ocean,' said Gehman. 'They're voracious eaters.' With many fewer sea stars, the sea urchins that they usually munch on exploded in population – and in turn gobbled up around 95% of the kelp forest s in Northern California within a decade. These kelp forests provide food and habitat for a wide variety of animals including fish, sea otters and seals. Researchers hope the new findings will allow them to restore sea star populations — and regrow the kelp forests that Thurber compares to 'the rainforests of the ocean.' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Toronto Star
5 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Dozens killed as Palestinians in Gaza scramble for aid from air and land
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians were killed or wounded on Monday as desperate crowds headed toward food distribution points and airdropped parcels in the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses and local health officials. Israel's blockade and military offensive have made it nearly impossible to safely deliver aid, contributing to the territory's slide toward famine nearly 22 months into the war with Hamas. Aid groups say Israel's week-old measures to allow more aid in are far from sufficient. Families of hostages in Gaza fear starvation affects them too, but blame Hamas.
CBC
7 hours ago
- CBC
Hunger-related deaths continue to rise in Gaza as more Palestinians killed seeking aid
At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies warn may be an unfolding famine. The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites. "Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back [on a wooden stretcher] as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe," said Palestinian Bilal Thari, 40. He was among mourners at Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of their loved ones killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, according to Gaza's health officials. At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials added. At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said. "We don't want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there's no life," Thari told Reuters. U.S. envoy visits controversial aid site as Gaza starvation crisis worsens 3 days ago WARNING: Video contains distressing images | The U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited Gaza on Friday to inspect a controversial aid distribution site, backed by the U.S. and Israel, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. There was no immediate comment by Israel on the incidents of shootings on Sunday and Monday. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including airdrops, pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netaynahu said on Monday he would convene his security cabinet this week to discuss how to instruct the military to proceed in Gaza and meet all his war goals. "We must continue to stand together and fight together to achieve all our war objectives: the defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages and the assurance that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel," Netanyahu said at the outset of a regular cabinet meeting. Netanyahu did not say when the security cabinet meeting would be held this week. 5 more people die of hunger Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the past 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began. UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that co-ordinates aid, said that during the past week, more than 20,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid in 1,200 trucks had entered Gaza but that hundreds of the trucks had yet to be driven to aid distribution hubs by UN and other international organizations. WATCH | Palestinians describe violent and chaotic conditions at aid drops: Palestinians scramble for aid after airdrop 5 days ago As the hunger crisis in Gaza deepens, the arrival of an aid plane — part of a joint operation by Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates — over Al-Zawayda on Wednesday sent people running and climbing over walls to retrieve its precious cargo, as some decried the chaotic conditions. 'Do I have to die so I can get it?' one man said. The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions late in July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs. Palestinian and UN officials said Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements — the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war. The Gaza war began when Hamas-led attacks killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
