Latest news with #GazaCity
The National
11 hours ago
- General
- The National
Gaza's children yearn for simple treats parents can can no longer provide
In a quiet corner of Gaza city, Muneera Abu Hani sits with her eight children, their eyes reflecting a longing no parent wants to face. Her youngest daughter, Widad, dreams of chocolate, a small treat once easily attainable but now entirely out of reach. 'Widad is just eight,' Ms Abu Hani, 42, told The National. 'She loves chocolate and asks me for it all the time. But it's not in the markets any more. And there's nothing harder than seeing your child want something so small, and not being able to give it.' This is the daily torment facing parents across Gaza with the territory under siege. For more than 20 months, Gaza has faced not only war but a tightening blockade that has choked the economy, emptied markets and made even essentials hard to come by. With border crossings closed to the free flow of goods, what were once daily provisions such as bread or fruit have become a luxury, a distant memory. 'Children suffer the most in a famine,' Ms Abu Hani says. 'They don't understand why things have disappeared. They only know they're hungry, or that they want something. And we, their parents, are powerless.' In the Al Nasr neighbourhood of the city, Mohammed Shubeir recounts a similar struggle. 'I live in an apartment full of children. They ask for everything, things they used to eat every day. The markets are empty of even the basics,' says Mr Shubeir, 36. 'We passed a street stall the other day that had a single small piece of chocolate. It used to cost a quarter of a dollar. Now it's 12 dollars.' It is a steep price for a bite of sweetness that, to a child, means comfort, normality, happiness. 'These traders hoarded goods to sell them now at sky-high prices," Mr Shubeir says. "When my kids ask for things that I can't find or can't afford, I just tell them to wait until the crossings open. But they keep asking, and I have nothing. That helplessness is the worst feeling in the world.' Rima Al Madhoun, 33, says her son Kareem wakes up asking for chips and juice. 'I have nothing, just bread and cold tea without sugar. That's all we have,' she says. Her husband roams the markets daily, trying to find anything – vegetables, fruit, baby food – for their four children, the youngest just one year old. 'It's not like our children are asking for toys or luxuries,' Ms Al Madhoun says. 'They just want vegetables. Some fruit. Something fresh. But we can't get anything. Even if you had money, there's nothing to buy.' The devastating war has created a grim reality for Gaza's children, displaced from their homes, their education disrupted, surrounded by death and living in a landscape of widespread destruction. 'The occupation has stolen everything from our children,' says Ms Abu Hani. 'Even the right to want something.' Parents find themselves no longer decision-makers; they are spectators to their children's suffering, able only to offer apologies and empty promises when all their children want is food. It is a slow, silent heartbreak to be endured in the shadow of a war with no end in sight.
CNN
15 hours ago
- Health
- CNN
Scores killed in Gaza in latest Israeli strikes
Israeli strikes in Gaza killed more than 70 people on Thursday, with multiple children dying. Injured children, screaming in pain, were brought to Baptist Hospital in Gaza City and other children appeared lifeless as they were carried into the ward.
CNN
15 hours ago
- Health
- CNN
Scores killed in Gaza in latest Israeli strikes
Israeli strikes in Gaza killed more than 70 people on Thursday, with multiple children dying. Injured children, screaming in pain, were brought to Baptist Hospital in Gaza City and other children appeared lifeless as they were carried into the ward.
Al Jazeera
17 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Israeli attacks kill at least 92 people including aid seekers in Gaza
At least 92 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip as desperate Palestinians continue to seek food amid an ongoing hunger crisis. Among those killed since dawn on Thursday, 64 were in Gaza City and the north and 16 others were waiting for aid assistance near the Netzarim Corridor, which splits north and south Gaza. Starving Palestinians have gathered in the area daily to receive packages from the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the United Nations has condemned for its 'weaponisation' of aid. Bassam Abu Shaar, who witnessed the Israeli attack at the aid site, told the AFP news agency that people had gathered overnight in the hope of receiving food. 'Around 1am [22:00 GMT Wednesday], they started shooting at us. The gunfire intensified from tanks, aircraft and quadcopter bombs,' he told AFP by phone. 'We couldn't help them or even escape ourselves,' he said, adding that the size of the crowd had made it impossible for people to flee Israeli fire near the Shuhada Junction. In recent weeks, Israeli attacks on Palestinians attempting to receive food aid have increased, killing dozens of people. Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the attacks on people at aid sites are becoming a 'daily routine'. 'More than three months of full [Israeli] blockade on border crossings has turned Gaza into a hunger point where people have run out of all kinds of humanitarian supplies and now found themselves to be forced to move to these designated centres to get bags of flour, bottles of water and alongside food boxes that, according to nutritional experts, contain low nutritional value,' Azzoum explained. 'These attacks are still unfolding, turning all humanitarian corridors into killing grounds,' he said. According to the Reuters news agency, the Israeli military claimed, without providing evidence, that there were attempts by 'suspects' to approach forces in the area of Netzarim in a way that had endangered them. The army added that forces fired warning shots to prevent suspects from approaching them, and it was currently unaware of injuries in the incident. Separately, an Israeli drone attack on a makeshift tent where Palestinians were charging their electrical devices in Al Shati Refugee Camp, killed 13 people, while an Israeli aircraft also launched intensive air strikes and bombarded several homes in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary said Israel's attack on the charging point at the Al Shati camp came after 'more than a-year-and-a-half' without electricity in the enclave. At the same time, the attacks on aid distribution centres are a testament to the 'deteriorating' situation in Gaza that has forced Palestinians to put 'their lives at risk for food', Khoudary added. 'Only a limited, very limited number of trucks coming in [to Gaza] every single day and people are very desperate; they're being killed as they try to take whatever is on the trucks,' she added. Over the past 24 hours, 69 bodies, including two that were recovered after an attack, and 221 wounded people were admitted to hospitals in the besieged enclave, medical sources said. Since the war began in October 2023, at least 55,706 people have been killed and 130,101 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Gaza: Eleven killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid, rescuers say
Eleven Palestinians seeking aid were among at least 33 killed by Israeli gunfire and strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, rescuers and medics say.A spokesman for the Hamas-run civil defence agency said Israeli forces "opened fire and launched several shells" at thousands of people who were queuing for desperately needed food supplies on the main Salah al-Din Israeli military said troops operating in the Nuseirat area fired warning shots overnight after a group approached them in a manner that posed a potential threat, but that it was unaware of any 19 people were killed in three Israeli air strikes in northern and southern Gaza, according to the civil defence agency. They included eight who died when a home was hit in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, it the air strikes, the Israeli military said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" in the territory. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said on Wednesday afternoon that at least 140 people had been killed over the previous 24 ministry reported on Tuesday that 51 people were killed while waiting for aid in the southern city of Khan Younis, while the UN cited partner organisations working on health as putting the death toll at more than told the BBC that Israeli tanks and drones opened fire as crowds gathered near a charity community centre and a warehouse belonging to the UN's World Food Israeli military acknowledged that its troops were in the area and said the details of the incident were under a separate incident on Tuesday, the civil defence agency said another seven people seeking aid were killed and many others were injured on Rashid Street north-west of Gaza City.A doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City told Reuters news agency that the fatalities were the result of Israeli air strikes and that the injuries were caused by Fida Masoud said her son "went to bring a bag of flour and came back [injured] in a bag".Meanwhile, a local journalist posted footage that he said showed his cousin celebrating after collecting a bag of flour for his family."A 50kg bag. I pulled it out from under the truck, inches from death," he declares. Almost 400 people have been killed while trying to get aid since 26 May, when the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened the first of its three distribution centre, according to the health GHF, which uses US private security contractors, aims to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid to the 2.1 million Palestinians in UN and other aid groups refuse to co-operate with the new system, saying it contravenes the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and also warn that Gaza's population faces catastrophic levels of hunger after an 11-week total Israeli blockade that was partially eased a month US and Israel say GHF's system will prevent aid being stolen by Hamas, which the group denies Wednesday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) condemned it as "lame, medieval and lethal"."Inviting starving people to their death is a war crime. Those responsible of this system must be held accountable," Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X."This is a disgrace and a stain on our collective consciousness." The GHF has not commented, but it said in a statement that it had so far distributed 30 million meals across its three distribution centres "without incident"."We remain focused on a singular mission: to feed the people of Gaza - and we are committed to scaling our efforts to reach even more in need," it WFP meanwhile warned that the 9,000 tonnes of food aid it had dispatched over the past four weeks was "a tiny fraction" of what was needed in also said the desperate need for food was causing large crowds to gather along well-known transport routes, hoping to intercept and access humanitarian supplies while in transit."Only a massive scale-up in food distributions can stabilize the situation, calm anxieties and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming," it military body Cogat reported that 85 lorry loads of aid entered southern and northern Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Erez West crossings on Tuesday, 66 of which were collected. Another 380 lorry loads of aid were waiting for collection by the UN, it 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 least 55,637 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
