International
Over 100 humanitarian groups warn of mass starvation in Gaza
Over 100 humanitarian groups warn of mass starvation in Gaza
More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups are warning of mass starvation in Gaza and pressing for governments to take action.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam are among the signatories of a joint statement that says their colleagues and the people they serve are “wasting away”.
Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into Gaza, denies it is responsible for the increasingly severe food shortages.
The organisations’ warning comes as the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said another 10 Palestinians had died as a result of malnutrition in the last 24 hours.
That brings the number of such deaths across Gaza since Sunday to 43, according to the ministry.
The UN has reported that hospitals have admitted people in a state of severe exhaustion caused by a lack of food, and that others were said to be collapsing in the streets.
“As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families,” the 109 humanitarian organisations said in the statement published on Wednesday.
“With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”
The UN says almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Gaza
Israel imposed a total blockade of aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, collapsing a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on the armed group to release its remaining Israeli hostages.
Although the blockade was partially eased after almost two months, amid warnings of a looming famine from global experts, the shortages of food, medicine and fuel have worsened.
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“Doctors report record rates of acute malnutrition, especially among children and older people. Illnesses like acute watery diarrhoea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up, and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration,” the humanitarian organisations warned.
“An aid worker providing psychosocial support spoke of the devastating impact on children: ‘Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.'”
The World Health Organization has said almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.
Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the head of paediatrics at Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, told the BBC that no food had been available for three days.
He said children come to his unit going through varying degrees of starvation.
Some were malnourished and died in the hospital’s care, he added. Others came with separate health issues that prevented nutrients from being absorbed by their bodies.
“We were afraid we would reach this critical point – and now we have,” he said.
The humanitarian organisations also noted that the UN says it has recorded the killing by the Israeli military of more than 1,050 Palestinians trying to get food since 27 May – the day after the controversial aid distribution mechanism run by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating as an alternative to the UN-led mechanism.
According to the UN human rights office, 766 people have been killed in the vicinity of the GHF’s four aid sites, which are located inside Israeli military zones and operated by US private security contractors. Another 288 people have been killed near UN and other aid convoys.
The Israeli military says its troops deployed near the GHF sites have only fired warning shots and that they do not intentionally shoot civilians, while the GHF says the UN is using “false and misleading” figures from Gaza’s health ministry.
The humanitarian organisations also said almost all of Gaza’s population has been displaced and is now confined to less than 12% of the territory not covered by Israeli evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones, making aid operations untenable.
And they said an average of only 28 lorry loads of aid is being distributed in Gaza each day.
“Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them.”
The UN says Israel, as the occupying power, has an obligation under international law to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches all the population in need.
Israel insists it acts in accordance with international law and facilitates the entry of aid while ensuring it does not reach Hamas.
It has acknowledged recently that there has been a significant drop in supplies reaching Palestinians but blamed UN agencies.
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Israeli military body Cogat, which co-ordinates the entry of aid into Gaza, wrote on X on Monday that almost 4,500 lorry loads had entered Gaza over the past two months, including 2,500 tonnes of baby food and high-calorie special food for children.
It also published drone footage showing what it said was some of the 950 lorry loads of aid waiting to be collected by the UN and other international organisations on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings.
“The collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip,” Cogat said.
The UN has repeatedly said it struggles to get the necessary Israeli authorisation to collect incoming supplies with Gazan drivers from inside the crossing points and transport it through military zones.
The ongoing hostilities, badly damaged roads, and severe fuel shortages have exacerbated problems. Criminal looting by armed gangs has also sometimes stopped operations.
The UN has said a major problem in recent weeks has been that it is struggling to get commitments from the Israeli military that desperate Palestinians will not be killed while trying to collect aid from its convoys.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told a briefing on Tuesday: “In too many cases where UN teams are permitted by Israel to collect supplies from closed compounds near Gaza’s crossings, civilians approaching these trucks come under fire despite repeated assurances that troops would not engage or be present.”
“This cannot be stressed enough that this unacceptable pattern is the opposite of what facilitating humanitarian operations should look like. Absolutely no one should have to risk their lives to get food.”
The humanitarian organisations said they “cannot continue to hope that current arrangements will work” and that it is time for governments to “take decisive action”.
“Demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organisations.”
“States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition,” they added.
On Monday, the foreign ministers of the UK and 27 other countries called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry said the statement was “disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 59,106 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Over 100 humanitarian groups warn of mass starvation in Gaza
BBC
International
Mother of four killed after mistakenly entering wrong home for cleaning job
Mother of four killed after mistakenly entering wrong home for cleaning job
A tragic case of mistaken identity has left an Indiana family shattered after Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez, a 32-year-old mother of four, was fatally shot while attempting to enter the wrong house for a cleaning job in Whitestown, a suburb near Indianapolis.
The incident occurred shortly before 7 a.m. on Wednesday as Pérez and her husband, Mauricio Velázquez, arrived at what they believed was the correct address for a scheduled cleaning. The couple, who ran a small cleaning business, had reportedly double-checked the address and circled the neighborhood before approaching the residence.
According to Velázquez, the tragedy unfolded in seconds.
“She didn’t even put the key in when I heard the shot,” he recounted tearfully. “I saw my wife step back twice, then the keys dropped, and she fell. I tried to console her and tell her everything would be OK, but I could see the blood coming out.”
Police arrived minutes later following a 911 call about a suspected home invasion. Officers found the couple on the porch, but Pérez was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Investigators have since confirmed that the couple had made an innocent mistake and were not attempting to break into the home.
“The facts gathered do not support that a residential entry occurred,” Whitestown Police said in a statement.
However, the case is legally complex due to Indiana’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which permits homeowners to use deadly force if they reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent or stop an unlawful entry or attack. Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood noted that under the law, individuals have no duty to retreat when defending their property.
Pérez, who had moved to Indianapolis from Guatemala a year ago, is survived by her husband and four children — the youngest not yet a year old. Velázquez said he is now focused on seeking justice for his wife and returning her body to their hometown in Guatemala.
“For me, she was the love of my life,” Velázquez said. “She was a good wife and a good mother.”
Police say the investigation remains ongoing, and no arrests have yet been made.
Mother of four killed after mistakenly entering wrong home for cleaning job
International
Israel receives hostage remains as Turkey issues warrants for 36 Israeli officials
Israel receives hostage remains as Turkey issues warrants for 36 Israeli officials
Israeli forces in Gaza have recovered the remains of another hostage, officials confirmed on Friday, in a development that signals cautious progress in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
The remains have been transferred to the National Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for examination and identification. If confirmed to belong to one of the hostages, it would mean five bodies remain to be returned under the terms of the truce that began on October 10.
Israel has so far released the bodies of 285 Palestinians as part of the ceasefire deal, though identifying them has proved difficult because DNA testing laboratories are not permitted to operate in Gaza. Officials say some remains recently handed over by Hamas were later found not to belong to any of the missing hostages, raising tensions between the two sides.
Despite occasional disputes over compliance, the latest transfer is viewed as a sign of progress in maintaining the fragile truce. U.S. President Donald Trump has previously acknowledged that the humanitarian and logistical conditions in Gaza complicate the implementation of the ceasefire terms.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that the volume of aid entering Gaza remains far below what is needed to meet the population’s urgent humanitarian needs.
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Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haqq said more than 200,000 metric tons of aid are positioned for delivery, but only about 37,000 tons have reached Gaza so far.
In Israel, hundreds of mourners gathered on Friday for the military funeral of Captain Omer Neutra, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier killed during the October 7 Hamas attacks and whose body was returned on Sunday.
At the ceremony, Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, described Neutra as “the son of two nations,” adding:
“He embodied the best of both the United States and Israel. He has firmly cemented his place in history as the hero of two countries.”
Neutra’s mother, Orna Neutra, delivered an emotional tribute, saying:
“We are all left with the vast space between who you were to us and what you were yet to become — and with the mission to fill that gap with the light and goodness that you are.”
In a separate development, Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 36 other senior Israeli officials, accusing them of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The warrants, while largely symbolic, reflect Ankara’s escalating criticism of Israel’s military operations in the territory.
Responding to the move, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar dismissed the warrants as politically motivated.
“Israel firmly rejects, with contempt, the latest PR stunt by the tyrant Erdogan,” Saar said in a statement.
The diplomatic tensions come as international efforts continue to sustain the ceasefire and facilitate further hostage exchanges amid mounting humanitarian concerns in Gaza.
Israel receives hostage remains as Turkey issues warrants for 36 Israeli officials
skynews
International
US Judge blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment to Portland, declares action unlawful
US Judge blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment to Portland, declares action unlawful
A U.S. federal judge on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, was unlawful and issued a permanent injunction blocking the move — marking a major legal setback for the president’s efforts to use federal troops in American cities.
Trump, a Republican, had earlier ordered National Guard deployments to three Democratic-led cities — Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Memphis — while similar plans for Portland and Chicago became entangled in legal disputes.
He repeatedly described Portland as “war-ravaged” and plagued by violent crime to justify the deployment.
However, District Judge Karin Immergut, herself a Trump appointee, rejected the administration’s argument that anti-immigration protests in Oregon constituted a “rebellion” warranting the mobilization of National Guard troops.
“The President’s unlawful federalization of the National Guard violates the Tenth Amendment, which reserves to the States any powers not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution,” Immergut wrote in her decision.
“With respect to the deployment of any state’s National Guard to Oregon, this permanent injunction order is in full force and effect,” she added.
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The ruling makes permanent an earlier injunction that had temporarily halted the deployment.
Authorities in California, which had opposed the federalization of its National Guard troops for use in Oregon, hailed the court’s decision as a victory for constitutional governance.
“This is a win for the rule of law, for the constitutional values that govern our democracy, and for the American people,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “Once again, a court has firmly rejected the President’s militarized vision for America’s future.”
The dispute stems from unrest triggered by a surge in immigration raids across several U.S. cities — part of Trump’s aggressive deportation push, which became a central theme of his 2024 campaign.
Judge Immergut ruled that there was no evidence of widespread violence, significant property damage, or actions by protesters that obstructed federal immigration officers from carrying out their duties, concluding that the situation did not justify invoking emergency powers.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling, potentially setting up a high-stakes battle that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
US Judge blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment to Portland, declares action unlawful
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