Famine in Gaza

[Jaga]

This could be avoided but Netanyahu's right wing Israel's government wants to destroy even more people and property. At least mass media are waking up to this.


www.mediaite.com/politics/death-is-better-than-this-cnn-airs-shocking-footage-of-gazan-children-hospitalized-for-malnutrition/

news.yahoo.com/malnutrition-deaths-reported-hunger-grows-013157361.html

[pieter]

This was a month agp

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Report Dutch Youth Journal (Jeugdjournal) for Dutch children

[pieter]

World / Middle East

Children starve to death in Gaza, WHO says, as ceasefire deal sticking points remain

By Helen Regan, Ibrahim Dahman and Amy Cassidy, CNN
Updated 8:19 PM EST, Mon March 4, 2024


A mother cries for her baby in front of an incubator, with the baby's body inside, at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza on February 29, 2024. Mousa Salem/Anadolu.Getty Images


A growing number of Palestinian children in Gaza are dying of starvation and dehydration, according to the World Health Organization and Palestinian officials, amid desperate conditions due to Israel's throttling of aid and destruction of the besieged enclave — reinforcing the urgency of this week's ceasefire talks.

A WHO team found “severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed,” during a recent visit to the Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in northern Gaza, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X Monday.

Tedros appealed to Israel to ensure the safe and regular delivery of humanitarian aid and for a halt to the fighting.

Negotiators gathered in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Sunday for talks on a Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal and release of hostages from Gaza, but Israel did not send a delegation, an Israeli official told CNN, despite increasing international pressure to end hostilities and allow for a desperately needed surge of humanitarian aid.

The official said the reason was that Hamas had not responded to two Israeli demands: a list of Israeli hostages specifying which are alive and which are dead; and confirmation of the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons, in exchange for the hostages taken when Hamas militants attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7.

The militant group wants a permanent end to fighting before agreeing to release hostages, a Hamas source told CNN as a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday. However, a high-ranking Hamas official did not immediately respond to a CNN question about whether the militant group had responded to Israel’s conditions.

It comes as the United States is increasingly vocal about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where the United Nations warns hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine and US ally Israel continues to obstruct the bulk of aid deliveries.

On Saturday, the US made its first humanitarian airdrop into the strip — 66 bundles containing meals but no water or medical supplies, a US official said. Aid groups have criticized the air drops as an ineffective and degrading way to get aid to Palestinians in Gaza, with the International Crisis Group’s UN director saying they are at best a “temporary Band-Aid measure.”

One of the strongest rebukes of Israel by a US official to date came from US Vice President Kamala Harris, who on Sunday forcefully called for more humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying that people in the region are “starving” in the face of “inhumane” conditions and urged Israel to do more.

She called for an “immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks,” a proposal currently on the negotiating table, and urged Hamas to free Israeli hostages.

“What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed. Women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration,” Harris said, citing the deaths of dozens of Palestinians amid Israeli gunfire and panic at Gaza food lines.

“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” said Harris.

Her comments come at a critical moment in the Israel-Hamas war. On Monday, Benny Gantz, a key member of Israel’s war cabinet and one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most prominent political rivals, was in Washington, holding meetings with high-level US officials that will include Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Children starving to death


Palestinian boy Ahmed Qannan, who is suffering from malnutrition, is attended to at a healthcare center, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights

In northern Gaza, children are starving to death and others fighting for their lives as critical supplies are held up from reaching those in need.

A Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson said Sunday the number of children who have died of dehydration and malnutrition in northern Gaza has risen to 15.

CNN cannot independently confirm the deaths of the children or their causes due to the lack of international media access to wartime Gaza.

A further 124 people were killed over the past 24 hours, the Gaza Ministry of Health said Monday, bringing the death toll in the enclave since October 7 to 30,534.

Doctors at the Kamal Adwan Hospital also “fear for the lives of six children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea in intensive care as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen and the weakness of medical capabilities,” Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, the Ministry spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement.

The death toll has been rising since last week when incubators and oxygen supplies at Kamal Adwan Hospital ceased to operate at night because of fuel shortages, the ministry said.

A WHO team visiting the hospital at the weekend corroborated the dire conditions, saying the lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children at the hospital.

“Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only paediatrics hospital in the north of Gaza, and is overwhelmed with patients… The lack of electricity poses a serious threat to patient care, especially in critical areas like the intensive care unit and the neonatal unit,” WHO chief Tedros said on X.

The United Nations children’s agency has called for urgent action, requesting “multiple reliable entry points” to allow them to bring aid.

“Humanitarian aid agencies like UNICEF must be enabled to reverse the humanitarian crisis, prevent a famine, and save children’s lives,” UNICEF’s Adele Khodr said in a statement Sunday.

UNICEF said it was also aware of at least 10 children dying due to dehydration and malnutrition in recent days at Kamal Adwan Hospital.


Palestinian children receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid acute shortages in Rafah, southern Gaza, February 13, 2024. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

“There are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all,” Khodr added.

One recent incident exposed the particularly desperate situation in northern Gaza.

More than 100 people were killed last week when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds, triggering panic as hungry Palestinian civilians were gathering around food aid trucks, Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses said.

Israel said its troops fired warning shots to disperse the crowd. A UN team that visited victims said many suffered gunshot wounds.

In a separate incident on Sunday, at least eight people were killed and several others injured in an Israeli strike on an aid distribution truck in central Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry told CNN. The truck, carrying aid donated by Kuwait, was struck on the Al Rashid coastal road in the city of Deir El Belah.

CNN footage shows a medium-sized truck destroyed, with seats covered in blood. Some people can be seen gathered around the wrecked vehicle, looking through the sand for aid that is still intact and can be used. The IDF has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

UNICEF’s Khodr described the situation in Gaza as “man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable,” and warned the death toll among children could rapidly increase unless immediate action is taken.

“The widespread lack of nutritious food, safe water and medical services, a direct consequence of the impediments to access and multiple dangers facing UN humanitarian operations, is impacting children and mothers, hindering their ability to breastfeed their babies, especially in the northern Gaza Strip,” she said.

“People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Amir Tal, Richard Allen Greene, Richard Roth, Eyad Kourdi, Oren Liebermann, Sophie Tanno, Priscilla Alvarez, Betsy Klein, Sam Fossum, Lauren Izso, Abeer Salman and Celine Alkhaldi contributed reporting.


Palestinian boy Yazan Al-Kafarna, 10 years old, who had cerebral palsy and died later due to malnutrition in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 2, 2024.

[Jaga]

Pieter, this is terrible. Israel right wing government and its propaganda and actions are equal to Nazi Germany. Lets hope that the world sees through this and will stop it. The US and EU want to build the marine base with food for Palestinians.

here is more about starvation in Gaza:
www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-children-starving-famine-warning-death-destruction-rcna141813

In the ruins of Gaza, children are starving to death and there's no cease-fire in sight
“When children are starting” to “die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other,” said a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office.

[Jaga]

I wonder how much of this starvation crisis in Gaza is caused by its right wing government. Here is about a food waiting for over two months because Smotrich, right wing minister BLOCKED IT.
It was there, but Israel refused to allow it to go to Palestinians. From the Times of Israel:

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/transfer-of-us-sent-flour-shipment-to-gaza-begins-after-two-month-delay-caused-by-israel/

Transfer of US-sent flour shipment to Gaza begins after two month delay caused by Israel

The process of transferring a massive shipment of flour sent by the US to Gaza has started after it was held up by Israel for nearly two months, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says.

Miller does not specify when trucks carrying this flour capable of feeding 1.5 million Gazans for five months began entering Gaza, but says during a briefing that Israel recently agreed to release flour from its Ashdod port and was “mak[ing] its way into Gaza — something we’ve been support for some time.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu privately informed the Biden administration that Israel approved the shipment in early January. The White House announced the development on January 19.

The shipment arrived at the port in Ashdod, but Smotrich blocked its transfer to UNRWA, which came under fire in January over allegations that 12 of its staffers participated in the October 7 terror onslaught.

On February 22, a US official told The Times of Israel that the new arrangement, with Israel’s agreement, will allow for the flour shipment to move forward, after Smotrich blocked its transfer for over a month.

The flour is to be ferried into Gaza by the World Food Program, rather than via the UNRWA relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the official said.

The delay has angered the Biden administration, which has repeatedly noted in recent weeks that Israel is violating the commitments it made to the president.

Miller says the release of the flour was one of several modest improvements seen in the Gaza humanitarian operation over the past several days.

He also says trucks carrying aid have been able to move around southern Gaza more freely than they were in recent weeks. There have also been convoys that successfully reached northern Gaza, where aid access has been particularly limited, Miller adds.

Gaza aid distribution ground to a halt last month, in the wake of a breakdown of law and order. After dozens of Palestinians were killed while trying to collect aid in northern Gaza on February 29, the Biden administration began airdropping aid into Gaza and announced the establishment of a marine corridor, which it aims to have up and running in two months.