Latest news with #mass starvation
Al Arabiya
5 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
UN says cannot verify waiting Gaza aid due to lack of access
The United Nations said Thursday it did not know how many truckloads of aid were awaiting distribution inside the Gaza border because Israel has not granted it access. International criticism is growing over the plight of the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 100 aid and rights groups have warned that 'mass starvation' is spreading. The Israeli military denied Wednesday that it was blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Palestinian territory, claiming that 950 truckloads of aid were on the Gaza side of the border waiting for international organizations to collect and distribute it. 'Despite our repeated requests, Israel has not allowed the UN to be present at the crossings, which are militarized areas,' said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA. 'We therefore cannot verify the amount of supplies currently at the crossing,' he told AFP. Laerke explained that the UN needed multiple authorizations from the Israeli authorities: firstly to get aid across the border from Israel into the Gaza Strip, where it is dropped off -- the trucks returning to Israel -- followed by another approval to drive trucks from inside Gaza to the crossing point to pick it up. 'It is very important to stress that it is not just about denials of requests to pick up the cargo,' he added. 'Israel -- as the occupying power and a party to the conflict -- must facilitate humanitarian operations all the way till it reaches people who need it to survive.' This means that, beyond simply authorization, 'they must provide the green light for trucks without unnecessary delays; allow teams to use multiple, safer routes; and order troops to stay away from the convoys, and never shoot at civilians along the allocated routes -- or anywhere else', Laerke explained. 'Without the full set of conditions in place, safe and principled delivery cannot take place at scale. So even when approved, those missions are often impeded on the ground.' After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May. The October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
Arab News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
More than 100 NGOs warn ‘mass starvation' spreading across Gaza
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situationA statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that 'our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away'JERUSALEM: More than 100 aid organizations and human rights groups warned on Wednesday that 'mass starvation' was spreading in Gaza, as the United States said its top envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and aid is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of it denied blocking supplies, saying that 950 trucks' worth of aid were in Gaza waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute.'We have not identified starvation at this current point in time but we understand that action is required to stabilize the humanitarian situation,' an unnamed senior Israeli security official was quoted as saying by the Times of the ground, the Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and the north, and had hit dozens of 'terror targets' across the Palestinian civil defense agency told AFP that Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight, including a pregnant woman in Gaza United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May — effectively sidelining the longstanding UN-led system.A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that 'our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away.'The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led United States said its envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe this week for talks on Gaza and may then visit the Middle comes with 'a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to,' State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told after Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade in late May, Gaza's population is still suffering extreme says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting said the United Nations, which refuses to work with it, 'has a capacity and operational problem' and called for 'more collaboration' to deliver life-saving the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said nearly 4,500 trucks entered Gaza recently, with flour, baby food and high-calorie food for it said there had been 'a significant decline in the collection of humanitarian aid' by international organizations in the past month.'This collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip,' it agencies, though, said permissions from Israel were still limited and coordination to move trucks to where they are needed — and safely — was a major humanitarian organizations said warehouses with tons of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from delivering the goods.'Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,' the signatories said.'It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage,' they added.'The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.'The head of Gaza's largest hospital said Tuesday that 21 children had died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory over the previous three have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with expectations that Witkoff would join the talks as they entered their final than two dozen Western governments called on Monday for an immediate end to the war, saying suffering in Gaza had 'reached new depths.'Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,219 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
