No aid supplies left and staff starving in Gaza, says Norwegian Refugee Council
GENEVA - The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and the organization accused Israel of paralysing its work.
"Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo.
The council's comments echo those made earlier on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency, who said UNRWA's staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion.
The NRC says that for the last 145 days, it has not been able to get hundreds of truckloads of tents, water, sanitation, food and education materials into Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, and Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has denied accusations that it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza, and has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing food, which Hamas denies.
"Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in… That's why we are so angry. Because our job is to help," Egeland said.
"Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyse our work," he added.
The NRC has 64 Palestinian and two international staff on the ground in Gaza. On Sunday the NRC had to move 33 of its staff out of Deir al Balah following Israeli evacuation warnings.
The NRC said its supplies of safe drinking water are also running out, due to dwindling supplies of fuel to run desalination plants. The water has reached 100,000 people in central and northern parts of Gaza in recent weeks
An Israeli official told Reuters there is about a half a million liters of fuel that the U.N. has been given approval to bring in.
"They're bringing in fuel and collecting, but they can bring in and they can collect more, and we are having discussions with them," the official said.
The official also said that there are about 700 trucks of unpacked aid on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing which have not been distributed. REUTERS
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
24 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Evictions and expulsions of Muslims to Bangladesh precede Indian state polls
Find out what's new on ST website and app. A boy stands with his mother inside a makeshift shelter camp in Goalpara district in the northeastern state of Assam, India, July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Sahiba Chawdhary GOALPARA, India - Beneath a sea of blue tarpaulin in a corner of northeastern India near Bangladesh, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies take shelter after being evicted from their homes, in the latest crackdown in Assam ahead of state elections. They are among thousands of families whose houses have been bulldozed in the past few weeks by authorities - the most intense such action in decades - who accuse them of illegally staying on government land. The demolitions in Assam, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party will seek reelection early next year, have coincided with a national clampdown on Bengali-speaking Muslims branded "illegal infiltrators" from Bangladesh, since the August 2024 ouster of a pro-India premier in Dhaka. "The government repeatedly harasses us," said Aran Ali, 53, speaking outside a patch of bare earth in Assam's Goalpara district that has become the makeshift home for his family of three. "We are accused of being encroachers and foreigners," said Ali, who was born in Assam, as the scorching July sun beat down on the settlement. Assam accounts for 262 km of India's 4097 km-long border with Bangladesh and has long grappled with anti-immigrant sentiments rooted in fears that Bengali migrants — both Hindus and Muslims — from the neighbouring country would overwhelm the local culture and economy. The latest clamp-down, under Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has been exclusively aimed at Muslims and led to protests that killed a teenager days ago. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Tanjong Katong sinkhole backfilled; road to be repaved after LTA tests Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Not feasible for S'pore to avoid net‑zero; all options to cut energy emissions on table: Tan See Leng Singapore With regional interest in nuclear energy rising, S'pore must build capabilities too: Tan See Leng Singapore New Mandai North Crematorium, ash-scattering garden to open on Aug 15 Singapore Science Journals: Lessons from weird fish sold in Singapore's wet markets World US and EU clinch deal with broad 15% tariffs on EU goods to avert trade war Asia Displaced villagers at Thai-Cambodian border hope to go home as leaders set to meet for talks Assam's firebrand Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is among a slew of ambitious BJP leaders accused of fomenting religious discord to stir populist sentiments ahead of polls across the country, says "Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh" threaten India's identity. "We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unchecked Muslim infiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift," he recently said on X. "In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land." He told reporters last week that migrant Muslims make up 30% of Assam's 31 million population as of the 2011 census. "In a few years from now, Assam's minority population will be close to 50%," he said. Sarma did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. 'VULNERABLE TARGETS' The BJP has long believed Hindu-majority India to be the natural homeland for all Hindus and implemented policies to counter the country's large Muslim population. In 2019 it amended India's citizenship law to effectively naturalise undocumented non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries. Since he became chief minister in May 2021, Sarma's government has evicted 50,000 people — mostly Bengali Muslims — from 160 square kilometres of land, with more planned. In just the past month alone, about 3,400 Bengali Muslim homes have been bulldozed in five eviction drives across Assam, according to state data. The previous government evicted some 4,700 families in the five years to early 2021. "Bengali-speaking Muslims, regardless of their legal status, have become vulnerable targets for right-wing groups in India," said Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at International Crisis Group. Indian opposition leaders have accused Sarma of using the evictions and expulsions to polarise voters ahead of elections. "These measures are politically beneficial and profitable for the BJP," said Akhil Gogoi, an opposition lawmaker. The main opposition Congress party, whose crushing defeat in the 2016 Assam election gave the BJP its first government in the state, said it would rebuild the demolished houses and jail those who destroyed them if voted back to power. "PUSH BACKS" The surge in evictions follows a deadly attack in April on Hindu tourists in Kashmir blamed on "terrorists" from Muslim-majority Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. BJP-ruled states have since rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling them suspected "illegal immigrants" and a potential security risk. Analysts say worsening ties between New Delhi and Dhaka following the ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have intensified sentiments against Bengali-speaking Muslims, giving the BJP a political weapon to use for votes. Bengali is the main language of Muslim-majority Bangladesh and is also widely spoken in parts of India. States including Assam have also "pushed back" hundreds of Bengali Muslims into Bangladesh. Some were brought back because appeals challenging their non-Indian status were being heard in court, Reuters has reported. Assam officials say around 30,000 people have been declared foreigners by tribunals in the state. Such people are typically long-term residents with families and land, and activists say many of them are often wrongly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge tribunal judgements. New Delhi said in 2016 that around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants were living in India. "The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. India's foreign ministry said in May that the country had a list of 2,369 individuals to be deported to Bangladesh. It urged Bangladesh to expedite the verification process. Bangladesh's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Since Hasina's removal and a rise in attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, Sarma has frequently shared details of foiled infiltration attempts, with pictures of those caught splashed on social media. "The ethnonationalism that had long animated Assam's politics seamlessly merged with the religious nationalism of the BJP,' said Donthi. "The focus then shifted from Bengali-speaking outsiders to Bengali-speaking Muslims." REUTERS
AsiaOne
an hour ago
- AsiaOne
Left with bloodstains and bullet holes, Syria's Druze grieve loved ones, Asia News
SWEIDA, Syria — Hatem Radwan stared at the bloodstained floor and cushions in the Al-Radwan guest house in Syria's Druze city of Sweida, still wondering how he survived the shooting spree more than a week ago that killed his relatives and friends. "I'm not sleeping. I wish I would have died; it would have been better for me," the 70-year-old told Reuters, saying two of his sons-in-law and his daughter's father-in-law were killed when armed men stormed into the guesthouse on July 16. Hundreds of people were killed in days of sectarian violence in Syria's Sweida province, where government forces were sent to quell clashes between Druze factions and Bedouin tribes. Syria's defence ministry on July 22 said it would investigate reports of an "unknown group" in military fatigues committing "shocking and gross violations" in Sweida, and hold the perpetrators accountable. The interior ministry condemned "the circulating videos showing field executions carried out by unidentified individuals in the city of Sweida," and also pledged to conduct a probe. Residents, monitoring groups and reporters in the province said the violence intensified after security forces deployed, reporting several cases of execution-style killings. One of the most gruesome was the Al-Radwan guesthouse. Radwan said armed men entered the guesthouse on July 15 as he was gathered there with Druze friends and relatives. The fighters smashed up the room, took the keys of a car that was parked outside and turned to leave. Radwan said he then heard one fighter say, "let's kill them so they don't recognise us." He collapsed onto the floor as the shooting started. Gunshot wounds to the chest "I don't know whether it was a bullet or what that hit me, but I fell down. I thought, 'it's over, I'm going to die,'" he told Reuters. A video posted online and verified by Reuters as being in the Al-Radwan guest house showed more than a dozen bodies, several with gunshot wounds to the chest, slumped over one another. Reuters could not verify the date the video was filmed. Reuters reporters at the guest house on Friday saw bullet holes in the walls and bloodstains on red-striped cushions and on the concrete floor. Nearby, another family was still grieving their loss. Members of the Saraya family spoke in hushed tones in their home, its walls pockmarked by bullet holes. Older women dressed in black except for white headscarves sat in silence. Seven of their relatives were killed with an eighth friend in an execution-style killing in Tishreen Square after being taken from their homes last week by armed militants, according to relatives and friends. One of them, Hosam Saraya, was a 35-year-old Syrian-American citizen who had lived in Oklahoma. Videos verified by Reuters showed eight men in civilian clothes walking in a single file accompanied by armed militants. Reuters was able to identify the location as west of Tishreen Square, in the heart of Sweida, but could not independently verify the date the video was filmed. A separate video shows militants opening fire on the same unarmed men kneeling in the dirt of the roundabout in Tishreen Square. Reuters verified the video's location from the statue in the square. A friend of the family, Moatassem Jabahi, said the fate of the men was unknown until he received a phone call from someone who saw the bodies in the square. "We called everybody we know and went to Tishreen square and we saw them. Their bodies were torn with bullets. It was not a normal killing. It was a criminal killing," he told Reuters. [[nid:720148]]
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
China opposes Czech president's visit to Dalai Lama
Find out what's new on ST website and app. FILE PHOTO: Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, is served food on his 90th birthday celebration at the Tsuglagkhang, also known as the Dalai Lama Temple complex, in the northern town of Dharamshala, India, July 6, 2025. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File Photo HONG KONG - China said it "resolutely opposed" Czech President Petr Pavel's meeting in India with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and urged the Czech side to "abide by its one-China political commitment" and maintain healthy and stable relations. China's embassy in the Czech Republic posted the notice late on Sunday and said China firmly opposes any form of contact between officials of any country and the Dalai "clique". Pavel met with the Dalai Lama on July 27, it said. "China urges the Czech side to abide by its one-China political commitment, take immediate and effective measures to eliminate the bad influence," the statement said. It added that the Czech side should stop sending "any wrong signals to 'Tibetan independence' separatist forces." The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, and Indian foreign relations experts say his presence gives New Delhi leverage against China. India is also home to about 70,000 Tibetans and a Tibetan government-in-exile. REUTERS Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Not feasible for S'pore to avoid net‑zero; all options to cut energy emissions on table: Tan See Leng Singapore With regional interest in nuclear energy rising, S'pore must build capabilities too: Tan See Leng Singapore New Mandai North Crematorium, ash-scattering garden to open on Aug 15 Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Sewage shaft failure linked to sinkhole; PUB calling safety time-out on similar works islandwide Singapore Science Journals: Lessons from weird fish sold in Singapore's wet markets World US and EU clinch deal with broad 15% tariffs on EU goods to avert trade war Asia Displaced villagers at Thai-Cambodian border hope to go home as leaders set to meet for talks
