Video shows dire starvation crisis in Gaza
How did your country report this? Share your view in the comments.
Diverging Reports Breakdown
Live updates: Israel-Gaza ceasefire talks stall as mass starvation crisis grows
Israel has previously allowed airdrops of aid into the Gaza Strip. But it was not enough to meet Gazans’ needs, and it killed people desperately trying to get supplies. The United States, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates were among countries Israel allowed to send aid. The process was deemed dangerous and insufficient by aid groups.
The United States, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates were among countries Israel allowed to send aid by airdropping it into the strip. The process was deemed dangerous and insufficient by aid groups and the United Nations, which stressed the method cannot replace aid delivered by land, the traditional way of sending aid into Gaza.
The process ended up killing Palestinians who crowded to reach the aid as the airdrops fell on them. Others drowned trying to get aid parcels that fell into the sea.
A joint statement by 25 nongovernmental organizations last year calling on governments to prioritize land-based aid deliveries said that states “cannot hide behind airdrops” to create “the illusion that they are doing enough to support the needs in Gaza.”
Hamas had also called on Western countries to end airdrops of aid into Gaza, warning that the humanitarian delivery method is “offensive, wrong, inappropriate and useless.” Hamas has from the outset been critical of airdrops, describing them as “useless” and “not the best way to bring aid in.”
The last airdrops took place in October 2024, when famine was underway but not as extreme as it is today — where all of Gaza’s population of 2.1 million is food insecure and at least 122 have died of hunger, according to the health ministry, including 83 children.
Israel will let foreign countries drop aid into Gaza, Israel army radio says
Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza starting on Friday. Gaza health ministry says more than 100 people have died from starvation. Israel has been at war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023.
An Israeli military spokesperson did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
The Gaza health ministry says more than 100 people have died from starvation in the Palestinian enclave since Israel cut off supplies to the territory in March.
Advertisement Advertisement
Advertisement Advertisement
Israel, which has been at war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, lifted that blockade in May but has restrictions in place that it says are needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
In the first two weeks of July, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday Gaza was suffering man-made mass starvation caused by a blockade on aid into the enclave.
(Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Charlotte Greenfield, Editing by William Maclean and Timothy Heritage)
One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished, UN aid agency says
One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and cases are increasing every day, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) says. More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups have also warned of mass
In a statement issued on Thursday, Unrwa Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini cited a colleague telling him: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups have also warned of mass starvation – pressing for governments to take action.
Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into Gaza, says there is no siege and blames Hamas for any cases of malnutrition.