Children Starve in Gaza as Hunger Crisis Deepens
Sometimes they wake her in the middle of the night, she said, begging for a taste of something sweet.
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CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Israeli military says it has begun airdrops of aid into Gaza amid increased starvation deaths
Airdrops of aid began Saturday night in Gaza, the Israeli military said, amid increased international pressure and accounts of starvation-related deaths in the territory. The Israeli military also said it would establish humanitarian corridors for United Nations convoys. Israel Defense Forces said in a post to Telegram early Sunday local time that it had airdropped humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, according to the Agence France-Presse. "In accordance with the directives of the political echelon, the IDF recently carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid as part of the ongoing efforts to allow and facilitate the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip," the military posted on Telegram, per AFP. The drop included seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food, the IDF added. In a previous statement issued Saturday, the IDF said it has begun a series of actions "aimed at improving the humanitarian response" in the territory and to "refute the false claims of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip." The statement came after increasing accounts of starvation-related deaths in Gaza following months of experts' warnings of famine. International criticism, including from close allies, has grown as several hundred Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to reach aid. "The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations," the earlier statement said. The IDF statement did not say when the humanitarian corridors for U.N. convoys would open, or where. The IDF also said it is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas. The statement also made clear "that combat operations have not ceased" in Gaza against Hamas. And it reiterated the IDF's position that there is "no starvation" in the territory. For months, the United Nations and experts have warned that Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of famine, with reports of increasing numbers of people dying from causes related to malnutrition. While Israel's army says it's allowing aid into the enclave with no limit on the number of trucks that can enter, the U.N. says it is hampered by Israeli military restrictions on its movements and incidents of criminal looting. Since easing the blockade in May, Israel has allowed in around 4,500 trucks for the U.N. and other aid groups to distribute, including 2,500 tons of baby food and high-calorie special food for children, Israel's Foreign Ministry said last week. Israel on Saturday said over 250 trucks carrying aid from the U.N. and other organizations entered Gaza this week. About 600 trucks entered per day during the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March. Israel is facing increased international pressure to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel's blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out. For the first time in months, Israel said it is allowing airdrops, as requested by neighboring Jordan. A Jordanian official said the airdrops will mainly be food and milk formula. Britain plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said Saturday. His office did not give details. "Israel must allow aid in over land to end the starvation unfolding in Gaza," Starmer said in a post on X. "The situation is desperate. We are working with Jordan to get aid into Gaza. We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children who need critical medical assistance to the UK for treatment. I am determined to find a pathway to peace." However, the planned airdrops won't do much to help quench the severe food shortages, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned. "Airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X on Saturday. "They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians. It is a distraction & screensmoke." He said the "manmade hunger" can only be addressed by Israel lifting the restrictions on aid into Gaza and guaranteeing the "safe movements + dignified access to people in need." At least 53 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunshots overnight and into Saturday, according to Palestinian hospital officials and the local ambulance service on Saturday, as ceasefire talks appear to have stalled. Gunfire killed at least a dozen people waiting for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north, said staff at Shifa hospital, where bodies were taken. Israel's military said it fired warning shots to distance a crowd "in response to an immediate threat," and it was not aware of any casualties. A witness, Sherif Abu Aisha, said people started running when they saw a light that they thought was from aid trucks, but as they got close, they realized it was Israel's tanks. That's when the army started firing, he told The Associated Press. He said his uncle was among those killed. "We went because there is no food ... and nothing was distributed," he said. Elsewhere, those killed in strikes included four people in an apartment building in Gaza City, hospital staff and the ambulance service said. Another Israeli strike killed at least eight people, including four children, in the crowded tent camp of Muwasi in the city of Khan Younis in the south, according to the Nasser hospital, which received the bodies. Also in Khan Younis, Israeli forces opened fire and killed at least nine people trying to get aid entering Gaza through the Morag corridor, according to the hospital's morgue records. There was no immediate comment from Israel's military. The strikes come as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have hit a standstill after the U.S and Israel recalled their negotiating teams on Thursday, throwing the future of the talks into further uncertainty. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering "alternative options" to ceasefire talks with Hamas. His comments came as a Hamas official said negotiations were expected to resume next week and portrayed the recall of the Israeli and American delegations as a pressure tactic. Egypt and Qatar, which are mediating the talks alongside the United States, said the pause was only temporary and that talks would resume, though they did not say when. For desperate Palestinians, a ceasefire can't come soon enough. The body of 5-month-old Zainab Abu Halib arrived at the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Friday. She was already dead. The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds). A doctor said it was a case of "severe, severe starvation." Zainab was one of 85 children to die of malnutrition-related causes in Gaza in the past three weeks, according to the latest toll released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday. Another 42 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the same period, the health ministry said. "She needed a special baby formula which did not exist in Gaza," Zainab's father, Ahmed Abu Halib, told The Associated Press. Her mother, who also has suffered from malnutrition, said she breastfed the girl for only six weeks before trying to feed her formula. "With my daughter's death, many will follow," Esraa Abu Halib said. "Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine months and then gave birth to, have become just numbers." More than 100 people have died in Gaza from malnutrition since the war started, UNICEF said on Thursday, and 80% were children. The charity said screening in the Palestinian enclave had found 6,000 children in a state of acute malnourishment in June alone, marking a 180% increase since February. A UNICEF spokesperson told CBS News on Saturday that its supply in Gaza of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, used for treating severely acutely malnourished children, is expected to run out in mid-August if more is not allowed in. "We are now facing a dire situation, that we are running out of therapeutic supplies," said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan, told Reuters on Thursday. "That's really dangerous for children as they face hunger and malnutrition at the moment," he added.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Israel is pausing operations in some parts of Gaza amid mounting horror over starvation. Will it be enough?
The Middle East The UN Israel-Hamas war Food & healthFacebookTweetLink Follow Israel has announced a daily 'tactical pause in military activity' in three areas of Gaza to enable more aid to reach people, amid growing international outrage over starvation in the territory. The Israeli military said the move would 'refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.' The pause – which will also see the military open up corridors to facilitate aid delivery by the UN and other agencies – has come too late for dozens of Palestinians, with officials in Gaza reporting more deaths from malnutrition and among people desperately trying to get aid from convoys and distribution sites. And while the 'tactical pause' has been welcomed by UN agencies, there are questions over whether it will be enough after months in which far too little aid has reached Gaza. Here's what we know. There's long been a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In nearly two years of war that followed the Hamas attacks of October 7, the vast majority of the population of Gaza has been displaced multiple times. Tens of thousands are living in the streets or makeshift tents. As Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed, access to water and power has become more difficult. Above all, the delivery of humanitarian food aid has been interrupted by the fighting, by difficulties in distributing aid and by restrictions ordered by the Israel military. Before the conflict, some 3,000 aid and commercial trucks would enter Gaza every week. Afterwards, numbers have plummeted. During a ceasefire at the beginning of this year, an average of several hundred trucks crossed daily. But that didn't last. The situation dramatically worsened in early March, when Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in an effort to force Hamas to release the hostages it still held. Hunger was already widespread in Gaza and in the following months only grew. Bakeries and community kitchens closed, and prices in markets soared well beyond what most Gazans could afford. The United Nations warned that malnutrition was on the rise while nearly 6,000 aid trucks sat at the border. At the end of May the blockade was partially lifted, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – a private venture backed by the US and Israel – opened food distribution sites in southern Gaza. But the UN and others have criticized the GHF for violating basic humanitarian principles and for not being able to meet Gazans needs. GHF says it have distributed more than 90 million meals and blamed the UN for not coordinating with them. More than 1,000 people have been killed since May in desperate efforts to obtain food for their families, the UN says, almost all of them by the Israeli military. In May, the UN reported that the entire population was facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with 500,000 people facing starvation and more than 70,000 children set to require treatment for acute malnutrition. To date, 133 people have died of malnutrition in Gaza since the conflict began, Palestinian health officials say, nearly 90 of them children. The majority of those deaths have occurred since March. Images of children dying of acute malnutrition have provoked global outrage, with the United Kingdom, France and Germany saying last week that the crisis was 'man-made and avoidable.' The tactical pauses announced by the Israeli military cover three areas along the Mediterranean coast – Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah, and part of Gaza City – much of which were already supposed to be safe areas where the population could flee. The Israeli military published a map showing the areas where the pause would take effect but marked the rest of the Strip in red as a 'dangerous combat zone.' The pause began Sunday and will last ten hours, from 10am to 8pm local time. It will continue every day 'until further notice,' the military said. An important aspect of the Israeli announcement is that designated 'secure routes' will be established from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time, to enable UN and humanitarian organization convoys to safely distribute food and medicine. Hundreds of trucks have been looted in recent months, often by desperate people but sometimes by criminal gangs, and getting aid safely to warehouses in Gaza will be a major challenge. Israel carried out an airdrop of aid into Gaza on Saturday night, having previously announced it would permit foreign countries to carry out operations. Jordan and the UAE carried out one on Sunday. But airdrops are regarded by aid agencies as expensive, inefficient and sometimes dangerous. UNICEF spokesman Joe English told CNN Sunday: 'We do airdrops in places around the world but it works where there are remote communities in big, wide open spaces. That's not the case in the Gaza Strip.' The IDF said it had also connected the power line from Israel to the desalination plant in Gaza, which would supply about 20,000 cubic meters of water per day – 10 times the current amount. Trucks have begun to roll towards Gaza, including convoys from Egypt and Jordan. But the volume of aid needed is huge. Thousands of trucks are ready to enter Gaza with food and medical supplies, but the main crossing point at Kerem Shalom is already choked with truckloads of aid waiting to be distributed. There are only two crossing points into Gaza – Kerem Shalom and Zikim in the north. UN agencies have said that security and a lack of permissions from the Israeli military frequently hold up distribution. The UNICEF spokesman told CNN that the agency 'cannot work miracles' with last-minute windows for getting aid into Gaza, because malnourished children require sustained care. The World Food Programme welcomed the Israeli announcement, saying it has enough food in - or on its way to - the region to feed the entire population of 2.1 million people for almost three months. It said it had received assurances that quicker clearances would be granted by Israel to allow for a surge in food assistance. The decision to enable aid to flow has already sparked dissent within the Israeli government coalition. The far-right National Security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he had not been consulted and the 'only way to win the war and bring back the hostages is to completely stop the 'humanitarian' aid, conquer the entire strip, and encourage voluntary migration.' The Hostages Families Forum said the tactical pauses should be part of a broader agreement to secure the return of the hostages. 'This is what the failure of the partial deals strategy looks like,' it said, demanding the government reach 'a comprehensive agreement to release all the kidnapped and end the fighting.'
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Plane drops aid over Gaza Strip amid concerns over worsening humanitarian situation
A plane was seen dropping aid over the Gaza Strip on Sunday, as Israel launched a series of steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there. The drop came hours after Israel carried dropped packages of aid with flour, sugar and canned food into the Palestinian territory. (AP video by Mohammad Jahjouh) Solve the daily Crossword
