Israel To Allow Foreign Countries To Parachute Aid Into Gaza
An Israeli military spokesperson did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
The Gaza health ministry says more than 100 people have died from starvation in the Palestinian enclave since Israel cut off supplies to the territory in March.
Israel, which has been at war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, lifted that blockade in May but has restrictions in place that it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
In the first two weeks of July, the UN children's agency UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday Gaza was suffering man-made mass starvation caused by a blockade on aid into the enclave.
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The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Israeli strikes kill at least 34 people in Gaza, officials say, as some aid restrictions eased
Israeli strikes killed at least 34 Palestinians in multiple locations across Gaza on Monday (July 28, 2025), local health officials said, a day after Israel eased aid restrictions in the face of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the territory. Israel announced on Sunday (July 27, 2025) that the military would pause operations in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Muwasi for 10 hours a day until further notice to allow for the improved flow of aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where concern over hunger has grown, and designate secure routes for aid delivery. Israeli military operations Israel said it would continue military operations alongside the new humanitarian measures. The Israeli military had no immediate comment about the latest strikes, which occurred outside the time frame for the pause Israel declared would be held between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Aid agencies have welcomed the new aid measures, which also included allowing airdrops into Gaza, but said they were not enough to counter the rising hunger in the Palestinian territory. Images of emaciated children have sparked outrage around the world, including from Israel's close allies. U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the images of emaciated and malnourished children in Gaza 'terrible.' Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine to pressure Hamas to free hostages. Israel partially lifted those restrictions in May but also pushed ahead on a new U.S.-backed aid delivery system that has been wracked by chaos and violence. Traditional aid providers also have encountered a similar breakdown in law and order surrounding their aid deliveries. Most of Gaza's population now relies on aid. Accessing food has become a challenge that some Palestinians have risked their lives for. The Awda hospital in central Gaza said it received the bodies of seven Palestinians who it said were killed Monday by Israeli fire close to an aid distribution site run by the U.S.-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The hospital said 20 others were wounded close to the site. Killings of women and children Elsewhere, a woman who was seven months pregnant was killed along with 11 others after their house was struck in the Muwasi area, west of the southern city of Khan Younis. The woman's fetus survived after a complex surgery, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. One strike hit a two-story house in the western Japanese neighbourhood of Khan Younis, killing at least 11 people, more than half of them women and children, said the Nasser Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military and GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those strikes. In its October 7, 2023, attack, Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. It still holds 50, more than half Israel believes to be dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 59,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says over half of the dead are women and children. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Gazans are starving, falling sick, and dying. Why has the UN not declared a ‘famine' in the war-torn land yet?
Populations across Gaza Strip are at the risk of famine, and a third of Gaza's population is going days without eating, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Till Sunday (July 27), aid into the Palestinian enclave was being routed only through the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). However, around 900 Gazans in the recent weeks have been killed at the GHF aid sites while trying to gather food, according to the UN human rights office, OHCHR. On Sunday, amid increasing criticism of the humanitarian situation, Israel said it would halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza and allow new aid corridors. However, even as alarm over the crisis in Gaza is rising, officially, famine is yet to be declared in the battered enclave. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, states that the formal declaration of a famine comes with caution. Set up in 2004, the IPC is the leading international authority on food crises, which includes over a dozen UN agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies. The IPC was developed during a food emergency in Somalia by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) along with global partners. It is coordinated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome. FEWS NET, meanwhile, was established in 1985, in response to famines in East and West Africa when US aid officials realised the need for a way to monitor global hunger. It was founded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to collect and analyse data from at-risk areas on a monthly-basis. The IPC defines famine as an extreme deprivation of food, its official website stated. 'Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident,' as described in the IPC Famine Classification processes. A famine, as per the IPC, can be declared when all of the following three conditions are confirmed: — 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving. — At least 30% of children (six months to five years old) suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they're too thin for their height. — At least two people or four children under five per 10,000 are dying everyday due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. Even though the IPC remains the 'primary mechanism' utilised by the international community to determine whether a country is in the grip of a famine, it is often the UN, along with government institutions and multiple other high-level representatives, who possess the authority to declare a famine in an area. Why does the declaration of famine matter? The IPC's classification system acts as a powerful tool in informing, alerting, and mobilising the world before a crisis gets out of hand. Declaring a famine could scale up the global humanitarian response to Gaza. A few countries where the IPC has recently declared famines are Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and in parts of Sudan's western Darfur region in 2024. What is the status of Gaza? IPC's analyses released on May 12 expected close to 71,000 children under the age of five to be acutely malnourished over the following 11 months (that is, April 2025-March 2026) in these, 14,100 cases were expected to be severe. Moreover, nearly 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women would also require treatment for acute malnutrition during this period. IPC categorises hunger crisis on a five-point scale: Phase 1 (Acceptable or, Normal), Phase 2 (Alert or, Stressed), Phase 3 (Serious or, Crisis), Phase 4 (Critical or, Emergency), and Phase 5 (Extremely Critical, Catastrophe or, Famine). Between May to September-end, the IPC projected the whole territory of Gaza to be classified under Emergency (IPC Phase 4), with the entire population expected to face Crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above). This includes 470,000 people (22 per cent of the population) in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5), over a million people (54 per cent) in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and the remaining half million (24 per cent) in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). Also, in Gaza, there persists an impossibility to gather accurate data, with limited access to the territory for experts, and completely damaged infrastructure and care and monitoring networks. The Commissioner-General for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, last Thursday posted on X that one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City. Lazzarini said most UNRWA workers are surviving on a meagre bowl of lentils each day, leading many of them to faint from hunger at work. He also pointed out that UNRWA has 6,000 trucks of food and medical supplies in Jordan and Egypt, which he demanded be immediately let through. 'Families are no longer coping. They are breaking down, unable to survive. Their existence is threatened,' he said. 'Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza.' Are there no aid trucks entering Gaza now? The food crisis in Gaza intensified early March this year, when Israel completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, demanding Palestinian militant group Hamas to release all the remaining hostages. In May, when the blockade was lifted after 11 weeks, Israel allowed limited UN deliveries to resume, and over 400 Palestinians were killed as they tried to reach the aid sites. Since then, Israel has allowed in around 4,500 trucks from the UN and other aid groups, to distribute, among other things, 2,500 tonnes of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, Israel's Foreign Ministry stated last week. Amid increased international pressure, the Israeli military Saturday night began to airdrop aid into the Strip. These included seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food, the Israel Defence Forces stated over a Telegram post on Sunday. On Saturday, Israel said that over 250 trucks carrying aid from the UN and other organizations entered Gaza this week. This is much lesser than the about 600 trucks that entered Gaza per day when the ceasefire was in place until March. The Israeli military also said on Saturday that it would establish humanitarian corridors for United Nations convoys, but refrained from providing further details.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
'No starvation in Gaza': Netanyahu says Israel committed to 'achieve war goals'; vows to destroy Hamas
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo/AP) Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out starvation reports in war-torn Gaza, saying he was "committed to achieving the war goals". Netanyahu said, "We will continue to fight till we achieve the release of our hostages". "There is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza, and I assure you that we have a commitment to achieve our war goals. We will continue to fight till we achieve the release of our hostages and the destruction of Hamas' military and governing capabilities. They shall be there no more," Netanyahu said. Earlier, several reports claimed starvation in Gaza, which has deepened the humanitarian crisis. Hospitals are reportedly on the brink, crippled by severe shortages of food, medicine, and essential nutrients. Over 100 aid and human rights organisations issued a warning this week about the growing threat of "mass starvation" in Gaza. Doctors without borders (MSF) reported that 25 per cent of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics last week were malnourished. This came just a day after the United Nations revealed that one in five children in Gaza City is experiencing malnutrition. Former US president Barack Obama on Monday also urged immediate action to prevent what he called the "preventable" starvation unfolding in Gaza, referring to the situation caused by the war that erupted between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023. "While a lasting resolution to the crisis in Gaza must involve a return of all hostages and a cessation of Israel's military operations, these articles underscore the immediate need for action to be taken to prevent the travesty of innocent people dying of preventable starvation," Obama posted on X. Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump has alleged that Hamas is unwilling for a ceasefire deal in Gaza as Israel suggested it might explore 'alternative options' to rescue the hostages after the talks broke down. An Israeli official said that air drop of aid wounds in Gaza. The aids group working in the city have warned of the surging numbers of malnourished children in the ongoing warzone, reported news agency AFP.
