Aid minister says situation in Gaza is so dire that she ‘would loot too'

The international aid minister has said the situation in Gaza is so dire that she 'would loot too' if she was there.
said the situation is 'horrific… we have severely malnourished children who are susceptible to disease'.
'There is every likelihood that if aid doesn't go in quickly, we will be in the situation of famine, probably in the autumn,' Baroness Chapman added.
She said: 'Keeping order is very, very difficult, and if you are starving and there is a truck of food… I would loot, who wouldn't?'If you need to feed your child.'

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The Guardian

5 hours ago

• The Guardian

Israel, we're begging you: please let aid organisations do our jobs in Gaza

Abed Al Rahman, just a boy, carried the weight of his family's hunger as he stepped into the streets of Gaza in search of bread. He had his father's money, but when he saw the tide of people pushing towards a food distribution site in Rafah, hunger pulled him into their flow. Almost immediately, the site descended into chaos. Gunfire. Drones. Then in a flash, shrapnel from a tank shell ripped through his little body. When I met him at a hospital in Khan Younis – where painkillers, like food, are scarce – the 13-year-old was in agony. 'I have shrapnel inside my body that they couldn't remove,' he told me. 'I am in real pain; since 6am I have been asking for a painkiller.' As he recounted the chaos, his father's composure shattered, and tears rolled down his face. Was he going to lose his son simply because Abed Al Rahman wanted his family to eat? Abed Al Rahman had been trying to get food from a new private and militarised distribution site in Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is funnelling aid through a handful of southern sites guarded by private contractors and Israeli soldiers. With so few distribution points, those who can make the trek are forced to travel long, dangerous distances – risking their lives for grossly inadequate amounts of supplies. In the first week of the GHF's operation, there were five mass-casualty events in the vicinity of distribution sites as desperate civilians were met by gun and tank fire. Children have been killed. The UN's aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said the sites made 'starvation a bargaining chip' and were 'a fig leaf for further violence and displacement'. A system that bypasses the UN has, in fact, bypassed humanity. Indeed, politicised aid distribution is unsafe for everyone involved – last week, the GHF said eight of its local team members and volunteers had been killed. And while it's critical that there is a focus on this lethal lack of aid for Palestinians, the daily killing and maiming of children has become an afterthought. This is my fifth mission to Gaza since the horrors of 7 October, and in all that time almost nothing has been done to stop the world's deadliest conflict for children in recent memory. There have been more than 50,000 children reported killed or injured in 20 months. Fifty thousand. On the same morning I met Abed Al Rahman, I spoke with 24-year-old Sheima, also hospitalised. She, too, went to one of the GHF distribution sites. Different day, same story: her family was denied humanitarian aid for months. Consumed by hunger, her father too sick to travel, Sheima reached a site. Again, gunfire. Boxes of food thrown to the dirt. 'I saw dead bodies on the ground,' she told me. 'People stepping over them, just trying to get some food.' In the mayhem, Sheima became entangled in wire – her leg and arm torn open as she tried to flee. She didn't get any food. 'Even though I almost died, I would go again,' she said. 'I'm the eldest in my family – we need food to survive. I wish to die with a full stomach, not from starvation.' These raw testimonials reinforce two critical questions. First, when UN and international non-governmental organisations warehouses outside Gaza are jam-packed with lifesaving supplies, why is there still a lethal lack of humanitarian aid in Gaza? And second, will these few sites run by private contractors solve the crisis? On the first point, after a total blockade on all supplies going into Gaza from early March until 19 May, Unicef and the World Food Programme are now permitted to bring in limited quantities of only a few selected items. Meanwhile, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned last month that all 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are facing life-threatening food insecurity. Lack of access to clean water has been pushed to lethal levels. Amid incessant bombardments, drastic aid restrictions and mass displacement of the civilian population, the risk of famine is not just possible, but increasingly likely for families in Gaza. From the end of the ceasefire to May this year, malnutrition admissions among children aged under five surged by nearly 150%, with a steep rise in severe cases. This isn't just a trend – it's an urgent warning. And to the second question, can the GHF prevent famine? The reality is, far too little aid is being distributed from far too few distribution points, all amid concerns that families travelling from northern Gaza to reach sites in the south will not be allowed to return. This is not how you avert famine. Before the collapse of the most recent ceasefire, the UN operated a highly effective aid delivery system in Gaza. And during the ceasefire, we were delivering assistance from more than 400 distribution points across the territory. Access to food, safe water, medicines and shelter skyrocketed. Unicef even went door-to-door to reach malnourished children. Unicef continues to call for a ceasefire, protection of children, the release of hostages and full aid access. We know what it takes to deliver for children in emergencies – it is the same in every crisis and every conflict since the second world war. Children need nutritious food at scale, safety, clean water and dignity. Not security operators. Not indiscriminate fire. Not chaos. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We delivered aid at scale during the ceasefire, and we can do it again. We just need to be allowed to do our jobs. Abed Al Rahman died of his injuries on 17 June 2025, after this article was written. James Elder is Unicef's global spokesperson

Times

13 hours ago

• Times

Wards ‘completely demolished' after Iran hits Israeli hospital

Doctors and nurses on the ground floor at Soroka Medical Center, southern Israel, were preparing to treat their first patients of the day when the air raid sirens wailed. Then an Iranian ballistic missile crashed into the roof. 'We heard a massive boom and the door blew in,' a healthcare worker said. When they had recovered, she and her colleagues sprinted up flights of stairs to the wards, where bedridden patients were terrified. 'We had to carry them down … to the shelters,' another hospital employee said. The missile destroyed the top floors of the building at the rear of the hospital in Beersheba, 60 miles from Jerusalem. An Israeli soldier at the scene shrugged when asked what she had seen. 'It's all destroyed there,' she said. Oscar, an elderly patient in a wheelchair outside the hospital, was waiting to be taken to safety. 'It was chaos,' he said. 'Nurses were crying, patients were crying, it felt as if the whole room was shaking.' Shlomi Kodesh, the hospital director, said 40 people were slightly injured in the attack and several wards were 'demolished'. Hospital staff said most patients had already been moved to safe spaces. Jonathan, a member of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said the upper two floors of the building 'were empty' when the missile hit. The Israeli military has accused Iran of deliberately aiming a missile strike at the hospital. Iran earlier claimed it targeted a military site close to the hospital, not the hospital itself. • However, Brigadier General Effie Defrin, an Israel Defence Forces spokesman, said on Thursday: 'Let there be no doubt, the Iranian regime deliberately and maliciously fired at the hospital and population centre with the intent to harm civilians. This is state-sponsored terrorism and a blatant violation of international law.' The head of the World Health Organisation, which has repeatedly criticised Israel for bombing hospitals in Gaza, condemned the Iranian missile attack as 'appalling'. Israel has defended its bombing of hospitals in Gaza as the only way to destroy what it claims are Hamas bases underneath medical facilities. The United Nations said Israel had not provided sufficient evidence in many cases. AMIR COHEN/REUTERS Israel Katz, the defence minister, accused Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, of giving the order to attack the hospital. 'Such a man can no longer be allowed to exist,' he said. The barrage also hit a residential area of Tel Aviv and a financial district close to the city. Health officials said more than 240 people were taken to hospital across Israel, with four in a serious condition. Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said in Beersheba the threat of missiles from Iran, as well as its nuclear programme, would be eliminated. 'Iran will pay a heavy price,' he added. More than 20 people have been killed in Israel by Iranian missiles since last week. Among them was a seven-year-old girl from Odesa, Ukraine, who was being treated for blood cancer. Another four family members were also killed. Nastia Borik, her mother, Maria, 30; her grandmother, Olena, 60; and two of her cousins, Konstantin Totvich, nine, and Illia Peshkurov, 13, were killed when Iranian missiles hit the city of Bat Yam on June 14. Their identities were not immediately reported. The girl's father, Artyom, is reportedly fighting at the front in Ukraine. He had helped raise money for his daughter to fly to Israel for treatment. The Ukrainian embassy in Israel confirmed that five of its citizens had died in the attack. Thursday's Iranian attacks came after several days of relative calm in Israel that had led to hopes among locals that Tehran was running out of ballistic missiles. As the war continued Netanyahu assured Israelis: 'With God's help, we will win.' Ultra-orthodox Jews, however, see the conflict as evidence of the impending end of the world. 'This is the start of the end of days,' said Meriev, a woman who lives near the hospital in Beersheba. 'After this war, God will send a new temple.'

Sky News

19 hours ago

• Sky News

IDF does not 'deliberately target hospitals', says former Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz

A former Israeli defence minister has told Sky News it is "absolutely not true" that the country's military deliberately targets hospitals. In an interview with Yalda Hakim, Benny Gantz - who quit Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet last year - also said he has "nothing against" the people of Iran or Gaza. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said at least 94% of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. A total of 917 healthcare workers in medical facilities have been killed, the WHO said last month. Asked about the figures, and if the Israeli military deliberately targets healthcare buildings, Mr Gantz replied: "This is absolutely not true." He said that when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) targeted al Shifa hospital in Gaza earlier in the war, it "did everything in our capacity to ensure nobody was getting hurt". Mr Gantz continued: "Those hospitals are a coverage, they are being used by Hamas to put all their infrastructure under those hospitals, underneath those schools. "We alert them and evacuate it, then we do what we have to do. We do not deliberately go and hit a hospital just because it's a hospital. There's no way we're doing it." 27:55 The Israelis' military action in Gaza began after Hamas's attacks on 7 October 2023. Israel last week started launching airstrikes on targets in Iran as tensions between the countries escalated. Describing himself as a "man of peace", Mr Gantz said: "I have nothing against the people of Iran as much as I don't have anything against the people of Gaza. "I do hope that one day they can live with something they can live with and we can live beside. "Until then, we must continue to operate to free our hostages, to make sure that Hamas is not threatening is anyone and we can move forward." He said of Israel's military action: "Yes we are fighting for own security [..] but aren't we serving strategically the region? Aren't we serving strategically the global society?" His comments came after an Israeli airstrike on a camp in north Gaza killed a total of 19 people on Thursday, according to the director of al Shifa hospital. They included three children and five women, Mohamed Abu Selmiyah said. Since the war began in October 2023, a total of 55,706 people have been killed Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has said.