Iran says at least 610 killed since start of war with Israel
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Observer
2 days ago
- Observer
Over 170 charities urge end to Gaza aid system
More than 170 non-governmental organisations called on Tuesday for a US and Israeli-backed food aid distribution scheme in Gaza to be dismantled over concerns it is putting civilians at risk of death and injury. More than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centres or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May, according to medical authorities in Gaza. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan 'inherently unsafe' and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. As of early afternoon in Geneva on Tuesday, where the joint declaration was released, 171 charities had signed on to the call for countries to press Israel to halt the GHF scheme and reinstate aid coordinated through the United Nations. "Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families," the statement said. Groups signing it included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International. In a response, the GHF said it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted". "Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza," the GHF said. Doctors Without Borders told reporters in an online press briefing on Tuesday that within the last month two of its small primary health centres had received 22 dead and 548 wounded people. Those who died had received fatal wounds to the chest and in abdomen. "They are not warning shots. They are shots directed towards the people," said Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, one of MSF's emergency coordinators in Gaza. In more than 50 per cent of the mass casualty incidents near food distribution sites, children have been shot and killed, said Rachel Cummings, Humanitarian Director for Save the Children in Gaza. "Children have told us they want to die... to be with their mother or father who have been killed. They want to be in paradise because there is food and water," said Cummings. The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians have been harmed at aid distribution centres in Gaza, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned". Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the centres in order to prevent the aid from falling into the hands of Palestinian Hamas fighters. Meanwhile, a UN official tasked with monitoring the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday accused Israel of using companies to pursue a "settler-colonial" displacement project aimed at apartheid and genocide. Francesca Albanese, an Italian legal and human rights academic, said that while political leaders and governments shirked their obligations, "far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide." Albanese, who was appointed UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories in 2022, has published a report entitled 'From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.' Israel has long accused Albanese of lacking fairness, neutrality and impartiality. The Israeli government rejects cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council and its organs. — Reuters/dpa
Observer
5 days ago
- Observer
MSF slams Gaza aid scheme as 'slaughter masquerading'
GENEVA: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on Friday for a controversial Israel- and US-backed relief effort in Gaza to be halted, branding it "slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid". The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operating last month, "is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies", MSF said in a statement. It said more than 500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip while seeking food in recent weeks. Starting in March, Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of that the entire population of the occupied Palestinian territory is at risk of famine. The United Nations said that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law. Israel began allowing food supplies to trickle in at the end of May, using GHF — backed by armed US contractors, with Israeli troops on the perimeter — to run operations. The latter have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food. There are also concerns about the neutrality of GHF, officially a private group with opaque funding. Children line up to receive a meal at a food distribution point in Gaza. — AFP The UN and major aid groups have refused to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals and that it violates basic humanitarian principles. The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce food supplies. "With over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled," MSF said. GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points. On Tuesday, the United Nations condemned what it said was Israel's "weaponisation of food" in Gaza and called it a war crime. MSF said the way GHF distributes food aid supplies "forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies". "These sites hinder women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities from accessing aid; and people are killed and wounded in the chaotic process," it said. Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF's emergency coordinator in Gaza, said the four sites were all under the full control of Israeli forces, surrounded by watch points and barbed wire. "If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot," he said in the statement. "If they arrive late, they shouldn't be there because it is an 'evacuated zone' — they get shot." MSF said that its teams in Gaza were seeing patients every day who had been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of the sites. It pointed to "a stark increase in the number of patients with gunshot wounds". MSF urged "the Israeli authorities and their allies to lift the siege on food, fuel, medical and humanitarian supplies and to revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system coordinated by the UN". — AFP
Observer
26-06-2025
- Observer
'Death is sometimes kinder': Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
GAZA CITY: Alaa al Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike. The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative said, only to be met with every parent's worst nightmare. "When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying," said Ali al Najjar, the brother of Alaa's husband. Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives. The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi al Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit. Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital. When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted. The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock. Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war. The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said. Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had "struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure" near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review. "I couldn't recognise the children in the shrouds," Alaa's sister, Sahar al Najjar, said through tears. "Their features were gone." "It's a huge loss. Alaa is broken," said Mohammed, another close family member. According to medical sources, Hamdi al Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital. Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions. Adam had his arm severely wounded and suffers from severe burns across his body. "I found my brother's house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath," Ali al Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children's bodies. Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness. "I don't know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves." "There is no safe place in Gaza," he added with a weary sigh. "Death is sometimes kinder than this torture." - AFP
