Latest news with #starvation crisis
The Guardian
a day ago
- Health
- The Guardian
How will Israel's ‘humanitarian pauses' affect Gaza's starvation crisis?
On Sunday morning, Israel announced it would begin a daily 'humanitarian pause' in three densely populated areas of Gaza as it comes under increasing international pressure to alleviate the territory's worsening starvation crisis. Other measures also announced include the resumption of airdropped aid, the activation of a desalination plant and the provision of humanitarian corridors to facilitate UN aid deliveries within Gaza. Last week the territory slipped into a full-blown starvation crisis, with dozens dying from hunger. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), 90,000 women and children are in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition, while one in three people are going without food for days. Doctors in Gaza have described struggling to keep up with the number of patients coming in seeking treatment for malnourishment, with few tools at their disposal to provide them help. 'Our malnutrition ward in the hospital is extremely overcrowded. Due to the large number of cases, some children are forced to sleep on the floor,' said Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the director of paediatrics at Nasser medical complex. The hunger crisis has affected virtually everyone in the Gaza Strip, with organisations such as the UN describing their staff as 'walking corpses'. After resuming fighting in mid-March, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza for two and a half months, in what it said was an attempt to exert pressure on Hamas to release hostages. In May, Israel started allowing a trickle of aid in, mostly through the private US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel proposed the GHF as an alternative to the UN-aid system after claiming – without providing evidence – that Hamas was systematically stealing aid from the UN. More than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to get aid, most of them near GHF food distribution sites. In total, Israel has let in 4,500 UN aid trucks into Gaza since May – an average of about 70 trucks a day. This is a far cry from prewar figures of 500-600 trucks a day, which the UN said is a requisite amount to help restore the health of Gaza's population. Israel has announced airdropped aid will resume, which humanitarian organisations have said will provide a negligible amount of supplies. It also said that humanitarian corridors would be established to facilitate the entry of UN aid trucks into Gaza, though the number of trucks that will be allowed in was not specified. NGOs say these steps may ease aid access, but with mass starvation already under way, far more is needed. In particular, humanitarian groups have called for a full ceasefire in order to get civilians the help they need. 'We have to go back to the levels we had during the ceasefire, 500-600 trucks of aid every day managed by the UN, including Unrwa, that our teams would distribute in 400 distribution points,' said Juliette Touma, the Unrwa director of communications. She explained that aid agencies had previously walked Gaza back from the brink of starvation and that to do so again, an unimpeded flow of aid would be needed to 'reverse the tide and trajectory of famine'. Unrwa, which Israel banned from operating in Gaza in January, has 6,000 trucks of aid loaded with food, medicine and other hygiene supplies in Jordan and Egypt. The WFP said on Sunday it had enough aid to feed the population of Gaza for three months. Israel's latest announcement also is unclear about how long it will maintain the pauses and corridors. Humanitarians have said consistency is key to their work. It also appears that Israel is relaxing some of its restrictions on the role of the UN in distributing aid in Gaza, but to what extent is unclear. The UN has said that only it is able to distribute aid efficiently within the territory, pointing to the deadly killings around the GHF as an example of why expertise is needed. Palestinians are reacting to Israel's announcement with caution, unwilling to raise their hopes after repeated promises of an imminent ceasefire have fallen through. People said they saw no immediate difference in the availability of food and of prices – with the exception of flour, the price of which dropped 20% overnight. It is the first day of Israel's so-called humanitarian pauses, so it could be a while before increased aid has a noticeable effect on the ground. However, Gaza's population is running out of time. Each day, more people die from hunger and the number of people suffering from severe malnutrition grows. Doctors have also warned that alleviating the starvation crisis will not be as easy as flipping a switch. People who are suffering from acute malnutrition need specialised treatment, as they can develop refeeding syndrome if they resume eating normally after a prolonged period of hunger. 'All of these folks who have been deprived for so long, we worry about the complications that they may have developed,' said Dr Thaer Ahmad, a doctor who has worked on medical missions in Gaza.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
How will Israel's ‘humanitarian pauses' affect Gaza's starvation crisis?
On Sunday morning, Israel announced it would begin a daily 'humanitarian pause' in three densely populated areas of Gaza as it comes under increasing international pressure to alleviate the territory's worsening starvation crisis. Other measures also announced include the resumption of airdropped aid, the activation of a desalination plant and the provision of humanitarian corridors to facilitate UN aid deliveries within Gaza. Last week the territory slipped into a full-blown starvation crisis, with dozens dying from hunger. According to the World Food Programme, 90,000 women and children are in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition, while one in three people are going without food for days. Doctors in Gaza have described struggling to keep up with the number of patients coming in seeking treatment for malnourishment, with few tools at their disposal to provide them help. 'Our malnutrition ward in the hospital is extremely overcrowded. Due to the large number of cases, some children are forced to sleep on the floor,' said Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the director of paediatrics at Nasser medical complex. The hunger crisis has affected virtually everyone in the Gaza Strip, with organisations like the UN describing their staff as 'walking corpses'. After resuming fighting in mid-March, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza for two and a half months, in what it said was an attempt to exert pressure on Hamas to release hostages. In May, Israel started allowing a trickle of aid in, mostly through the private US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel proposed the GHF as an alternative to the UN-aid system after claiming – without providing evidence – that Hamas was systematically stealing aid from the UN. More than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to get aid, most of them near GHF food distribution sites. In total, Israel has let in 4,500 UN aid trucks into Gaza since May – an average of about 70 trucks a day. This is a far cry from prewar figures of 500-600 trucks a day, which the UN said is a requisite amount to help restore the health of Gaza's population. Israel has announced airdropped aid will resume, which humanitarian organisations have said will provide a negligible amount of supplies. It also said that humanitarian corridors will be established to facilitate the entry of UN aid trucks into Gaza, though the number of trucks that will be allowed in is unspecified. NGOs say these steps may ease aid access, but with mass starvation already under way, far more is needed. In particular, humanitarian groups have called for a full ceasefire in order to get civilians the help they need. 'We have to go back to the levels we had during the ceasefire, 500-600 trucks of aid every day managed by the UN, including Unrwa, that our teams would distribute in 400 distribution points,' said Juliette Touma, Unrwa director of communications. She explained that aid agencies had previously walked Gaza back from the brink of starvation and that to do so again, an unimpeded flow of aid would be needed to 'reverse the tide and trajectory of famine'. Unrwa, which Israel banned from operating in Gaza in January, has 6,000 trucks of aid loaded with food, medicine and other hygiene supplies in Jordan and Egypt. The WFP said on Sunday it had enough aid to feed the population of Gaza for three months. Israel's latest announcement also is unclear about how long it will maintain humanitarian pauses and corridors. Humanitarians have said that consistency is key to their work. It also appears that Israel is relaxing some of its restrictions on the role of the UN in distributing aid in Gaza, but to what extent is unclear. The UN has said that only it is able to distribute aid efficiently within the territory, pointing to the deadly killings around the GHF as an example of why expertise is needed. Palestinians are reacting to Israel's announcement with caution, unwilling to raise their hopes after repeated promises of an imminent ceasefire have fallen through. Local people said they saw no immediate difference in the availability of food and of prices – with the exception of flour, the price of which dropped 20% over night. It is the first day of Israel's humanitarian pauses, so it could be a while before increased aid has a noticeable effect on the ground. However, Gaza's population is running out of time. Each day, more people die from hunger and the number of people suffering from severe malnutrition grows. Doctors have also warned that alleviating the starvation crisis will not be as easy as flipping a switch. People who are suffering from acute malnutrition need specialised treatment, as they can develop refeeding syndrome if they resume eating normally after a prolonged period of hunger. 'All of these folks who have been deprived for so long, we worry about the complications that they may have developed,' said Dr Thaer Ahmad, a doctor who has worked on medical missions in Gaza.
France 24
2 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Israel announces daily pauses in Gaza fighting as aid airdrops begin
06:56 27/07/2025 Gaza: Israel announces daily 10-hour pauses aimed at facilitating humanitarian aid Middle East 27/07/2025 Israel says opening routes into Gaza to increase food aid Middle East 27/07/2025 Gaza: Aid begins trickling in as Palestinians starve Middle East 26/07/2025 Ziad Rahbani, the voice a wounded Lebanon, dies at 69 Middle East 26/07/2025 Starvation crisis deepens in Gaza: are aidrops really the solution? Middle East 26/07/2025 Gaza aid airdrops spark criticism, as starvation deepens in the Strip Middle East 26/07/2025 Gaza: Protesters across the world demand aid access to the Strip Middle East 26/07/2025 Gaza: Israel says air drops of aid will resume soon over the Strip Middle East 25/07/2025 Gaza: 25% children are malnourished, says MSF Middle East
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
Israel to let more aid trucks into Gaza, under pressure over hunger crisis
JERUSALEM — Israel was poised Sunday to begin allowing more trucks of food aid into Gaza, and it resumed supplying power to a critical water treatment plant, marking a political turnaround four months after Benjamin Netanyahu's government started tightly controlling the flow of humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas. It was not immediately clear whether the changes announced by Israel would be enough to stave off an accelerating starvation crisis, but U.N. officials said Sunday that Israel appeared willing to allow more trucks to enter Gaza than before. Scores of trucks from Egypt and Jordan set off for Gaza early Sunday, and the Israeli military said it would facilitate the movement of U.N. and other aid convoys inside the besieged territory. But according to an internal U.N. memo seen by The Washington Post, Israel has guaranteed only that there would be an uptick in aid and 'tactical pauses' in fighting to allow its delivery for one week, effective Sunday. An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with protocol, said he was unaware that there was a week-long limitation to the aid restrictions being lifted. The Israeli military publicly said it would carry out 'tactical pauses' in three areas of Gaza to facilitate the increased entry of aid 'until further notice.' In addition, Israel permitted multiple countries to begin airdropping food into Gaza on Sunday after the Israeli Air Force delivered a small initial package Saturday night. But far more food can be transported over land, and aid professionals have been urgently calling on Israel to lift restrictions on the United Nations' operations, which have been heavily criticized by Israel but are considered the most efficient way to supply nearly 2 million Gazans. Gaza's Health Ministry recorded six new deaths from malnutrition Sunday, bringing the total to 133, including 87 children. Just a month before, the number of deaths from starvation during the war stood at 65. Medics and experts have said that the ministry's figures are probably an undercount given how rarely malnutrition is listed as the primary cause of death and that once mass hunger sets in, fatalities may rise exponentially. An Israeli military official acknowledged this week to reporters that Gaza was facing a 'lack of food security' but denied there was famine. Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Israel's Hebrew University, said Netanyahu's heavy restrictions on aid, implemented to satisfy far-right coalition allies who have fiercely resisted the provision of any assistance to Gaza and who have called for a full military occupation of the Strip, were becoming increasingly untenable. The weekend decision to allow in more food came only after the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, entered its summer recess, she noted. 'Netanyahu understands the international pressure is mounting, and that the situation cannot be resolved through all the obstacles he put himself into … in order to protect his coalition,' Talshir said. For months, right-wing Israeli politicians and military hard-liners have justified the restrictions on the U.N. by arguing that its supplies often fall into the hands of Hamas militants — a claim that has been rejected by Western governments and U.N. officials. Permitting the free flow of U.N. aid now would represent a significant change months after Israel sidelined the international body and backed a privately run venture called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has come under criticism for supplying inadequate food to only parts of Gaza and leaving packages in chaotic sites where mobs of desperate aid seekers often come into contact with Israeli troops. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid since the system changed in May, the majority of them near GHF sites, according to the U.N. human rights office. The GHF denies there has been any violence inside the sites themselves. U.N. officials said early Sunday that they were still trying to ascertain details from Israeli officials about how the new policies will be implemented, but they welcomed the changes, which would include a lifting of customs requirements for trucks from Egypt and the facilitation of the entry of food and medicines, as well as hygiene and water treatment items. It was not clear on Sunday how significant the increase in aid would be, they said. 'There is an opportunity to use the opening for the possible scale up wherever we can and save lives, as much as operational reality will allow,' Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, said in the internal memo viewed by The Post. Israel resumed supplying electricity to a coastal desalination plant that had been shut in March after pressure from right-wing politicians. The plant, which resumed operating Saturday, is now producing about 18,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day, Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility said. Residents have been facing a shortage of fresh water for drinking and cooking, and aid agencies have reported an explosion of infectious diseases because of poor sanitation. The changes provoked an angry response almost immediately from the Israeli far right. As a small group of protesters gathered Sunday morning to block aid trucks entering from Egypt, Netanyahu's national security minister, the ultranationalist settler leader Itamar Ben Gvir, took to social media to accuse the prime minister of discussing and implementing the loosening of aid behind his back. 'On Saturday night, I was informed by a source in the Prime Minister's Office that during the Sabbath, a security consultation was held without me,' Ben-Gvir wrote on X. 'It turns out that the 'alternative way' is to surrender to Hamas and its false campaigns and to increase the humanitarian aid that reaches it directly. … The only way to win the war and bring back the hostages is to completely halt the 'humanitarian' aid, conquer the entire Gaza Strip and encourage voluntary emigration.' Cheeseman reported from Beirut, and Soroka reported from Tel Aviv.
Arab News
2 days ago
- General
- Arab News
UN aid chief welcomes ‘humanitarian pauses' in Gaza
GENEVA: The United Nations' aid chief welcomed Israel's announcement Sunday of secure land routes into Gaza for humanitarian convoys, and said the UN would try to reach as many starving people as possible. 'Welcome announcement of humanitarian pauses in Gaza to allow our aid through,' UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said on X. 'In contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window.' Fletcher's UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned Friday that conditions on the ground in Gaza were 'already catastrophic and deteriorating fast.' 'The starvation crisis is deepening,' it said, warning that hunger and malnutrition increase the risk of illnesses, and adding that the consequences can quickly 'turn deadly.' It said that 'the trickle of supplies that are making it into the Strip are nowhere near adequate to address the immense needs.' OCHA said UN teams were in place to ramp up deliveries into the Palestinian territory 'as soon as they are allowed to do so.' 'If Israel opens the crossings, lets fuel and equipment in, and allows humanitarian staff to operate safely, the UN will accelerate the delivery of food aid, health services, clean water and waste management, nutrition supplies, and shelter materials,' it said. OCHA said constraints imposed by the Israeli authorities had hampered humanitarians' ability to respond. It said that on Thursday, for example, out of 15 attempts to coordinate humanitarian movements inside Gaza, four were 'outright denied,' with another three impeded. One was postponed, and two others had to be canceled, meaning only five missions went ahead. On Friday OCHA issued an aid delivery plan in the event of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
