Children, in particular, continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, humanitarian groups say.
The U.N. children’s agency warned this week that almost 3,000 children have been cut off from treatment for malnutrition in southern Gaza, “putting them at risk of death as harrowing violence and displacement continue to impact access to health care facilities.”
“Horrific images continue to emerge from Gaza of children dying before their families’ eyes due to the continued lack of food, nutrition supplies,” said Adele Khodr, UNICEF Middle East regional director. “Unless treatment can be quickly resumed for these 3,000 children, they are at immediate and serious risk of becoming critically ill, acquiring life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls who have been killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation.”
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Residents of the northern Gaza Strip spoke Friday about severe food shortages with sluggish aid movement into their area.
“There are often no foodstuffs. Vegetables, fruits, and meat are not available, and what is available cannot be purchased by most residents due to the high prices,” said Beit Lahia resident, Muhammad Mamdouh, who lives in a partially destroyed house with his family of six. “I spend most of my day searching for food for my family … most of the food we currently eat is unhealthy.”
Chronic water shortages are also contributing to the misery, said Rahma Hilal by phone, due to the widespread destruction of pumping infrastructure from wells. “Water reaches our area once a week, but we find it difficult to raise it to the tanks above the house due to the lack of electricity.”
The summer’s heat is compounding the devastation, said Shireen Rajab, who lives in one of the tent cities in the south.
“Life in the tent is like hell. “We do not know what to do, whether to stay inside or go outside … The high temperatures are unbearable,” she said. “Children suffer from skin diseases as a result of excessive heat and sweat, and the lack of water for bathing.”
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said this week that a “significant proportion of Gaza’s population” is facing “famine-like conditions.”
Violence against children caught in armed conflict globally reached “extreme levels” last year, according to a U.N. report published Thursday, with the highest number of grave violations verified in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory. It reported a 155 percent increase of such violations against children that include killing, maiming, abduction and denial of humanitarian access.
“I am appalled by the dramatic increase and unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, despite my repeated calls for parties to implement measures to end grave violations,” said U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.
Aid agencies continue to call for more aid to be let into the battered enclave, while Israel blames the United Nations for inefficiencies, saying that much aid remains waiting at the border. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli authority that overseas the Palestinian territories, said 220 aid trucks entered Gaza Thursday, most through the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and southern Gaza.
Aid agencies have said the fighting inside Gaza and difficulties of coordinating with Israeli authorities have made the Kerem Shalom crossing largely inaccessible for them.
A U.S.-made floating pier, meant to help deliver aid into Gaza by sea, remains inactive, after the United Nations said it has paused cooperating on aid delivery via the pier while it undertakes assessments about whether it was used by Israeli forces in a June 8 operation that rescued four hostages and killed more than 250 Palestinians.
“You can be damn sure we are going to be very careful about what we assess and what we conclude,” U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said this week. The United States and Israel have both denied any use of the pier in the raid.
Deliveries were also suspended last month after the pier broke apart in rough water, marking another setback for the $230 million project.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Hamas of making unworkable demands during cease-fire negotiations. “It’s time for the haggling to stop and the cease-fire to start,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Qatar Wednesday. Hamas submitted a response this week to a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal seeking assurances about an end to the war. Blinken said Hamas proposed “numerous changes” to the plan announced by President Biden late last month. “Some of the changes are workable, some are not,” he added. Israel, for its part, also appeared to be dragging its feet on the deal, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under pressure from the right flank of his cabinet not to accept the deal.
Hamas official says “no one has an idea” how many hostages are still alive in Israel. During an interview aired Friday with CNN, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said “I don’t have any idea about that,” when asked whether the 120 hostages captured on Oct. 7 by Hamas were still alive. He described Oct. 7 as “reaction against the occupation” be Israel. Speaking about the possible cease-fire deal, Hamdan said Hamas was waiting for “a clear position from Israel to accept the cease-fire,” as well as “the complete withdrawal from Gaza,” and to “let the Palestinians determine their future by themselves.”
Israeli politician Yair Golan has scolded Netanyahu’s war effort, stating it has “no realistic goals.” Golan leads Israel’s center-left Labor Party and won widespread acclaim for personally rescuing people during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Golan said it was “impossible to free the hostages and destroy Hamas at the same time,” adding that Israel has “no plan for the day after the war.” He blamed Netanyahu for not ending the war sooner, claiming the prime minister instead preferred “his own political interest over the lives of Israeli men and women whom he is responsible for.”
Israel will divert about $35 million in tax revenue collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to Israeli “families of the victims of terrorism,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Thursday. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the action as “extraordinarily wrongheaded” and said it “risks destabilizing the West Bank and further harming Israel’s own security.” Israel collects certain taxes, including custom and excise duties, on behalf of the Palestinians and transfers the money to the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries and other public expenses.
Houthi militants damaged a cargo ship in an attack that left a crew member severely wounded, the Yemen-based group’s second strike on a commercial vessel this week, U.S. Central Command said. The MV Verbena — a Palauan-flagged, Ukrainian-owned, Polish-operated ship — was hit by two anti-ship cruise missiles as it passed through the Red Sea. It was carrying wood construction material from Malaysia to Italy.
At least 37,232 people have been killed and 85,037 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 298 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operations in Gaza.
Miriam Berger and Frances Vinall contributed to this report.
