Latest news with #MahmoudIssa
Japan Today
17 hours ago
- Health
- Japan Today
Israeli strikes kill 44 Palestinians in Gaza
A mourner reacts next to a covered body, during the funeral of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire yesterday, while they sought aid in northern Gaza, according to Gaza's health ministry, at Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, June 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Olivia Le Poidevin Israeli fire killed at least 44 Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, many of whom had been trying to get food, local officials said, while the United Nations' children's agency warned of a looming man-made drought in the enclave as its water systems collapse. At least 25 people awaiting aid trucks were killed by Israeli fire south of Netzarim in central Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run local health authority said. Asked by Reuters about the incident, the Israel Defense Force said its troops had fired warning shots at suspected militants who advanced in a crowd towards them. An Israeli aircraft then "struck and eliminated the suspects", it said in a statement, adding that it was aware of others being hurt in the incident and was conducting a review. Separately, Gazan medics said at least 19 others were killed in other Israeli military strikes across the enclave, including 12 people in a house in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, taking Friday's total death toll to at least 44. In a statement on Friday, the Islamist Hamas group, which says Israel is using hunger as a weapon against the population of Gaza, accused Israel of systematically targeting Palestinians seeking food aid across the enclave. Israel denies this and accuses Hamas of stealing food aid, which the group denies. Meanwhile UNICEF, the U.N.'s children's agency, warned in Geneva of drought conditions developing in Gaza. "Children will begin to die of thirst ... Just 40% of drinking water production facilities remain functional," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters. "We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water." UNICEF also reported a 50% increase in children aged six months to 5 years admitted for treatment of malnutrition from April to May in Gaza, and half a million people going hungry. FOOD AID Elder, who was recently in Gaza, said he had many testimonials of women and children injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries. A lack of public clarity on when the sites - some of which are in combat zones - are open is causing mass casualty events, he added. The route near Netzarim has become dangerous since the start of a new U.S.-backed aid distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), witnesses told Reuters, with desperate Gazans heading to a designated area late at night to try and get something from aid supplies due to be handed out after dawn. The route has also been used by aid trucks sent by the United Nations and aid groups, and people have also been heading there in the hope of grabbing bags off trucks. UNICEF said GHF was "making a desperate situation worse". On Thursday, at least 70 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes, including 12 people who tried to approach a site operated by the GHF in the central Gaza Strip. In an email to Reuters, GHF accused Gazan health officials of regularly releasing inaccurate information. It said Palestinians do not access the nearby GHF site via the Netzarim corridor. The statement did not address a question about whether GHF was aware of Thursday's incident. The GHF said in a statement on Thursday it had so far distributed nearly three million meals across three of its aid sites without incident. The Red Cross told Reuters that the "vast majority" of patients that arrived at its Field Hospital during mass casualty incidents had reported that they were wounded while trying to access aid, at or around aid distribution points. Between May 27 and Thursday, the aid group received 1,874 patients wounded by weapons, according to Red Cross figures. The Gaza war was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of more than 2 million and causing a hunger crisis. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
18 hours ago
- Health
Gaza faces a man-made drought as water systems collapse, UNICEF says
Gaza is facing a man-made drought as its water systems collapse, the United Nations' children agency said on Friday. Children will begin to die of thirst ... Just 40 per cent of drinking water production facilities remain functional, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva. We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for people in Gaza, he added. UNICEF also reported a 50 per cent increase in children aged six months to five years admitted for treatment of malnutrition from April to May in Gaza, and half a million people going hungry. It said the U.S.-backed aid distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was making a desperate situation worse. A boy sits under a broken UNICEF sign as Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Oct. 19, 2024. (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters) Photo: (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters) On Friday, at least 25 people awaiting aid trucks or seeking aid were killed by Israeli fire south of Netzarim in central Gaza Strip, according to local health authorities. On Thursday, at least 51 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and military strikes, including 12 people who tried to approach a site operated by the GHF in the central Gaza Strip. Elder, who was recently in Gaza, said he had many testimonials of women and children injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries. He said a lack of public clarity on when the sites, some of which are in combat zones, were open was causing mass casualty events. There have been instances where information [was] shared that a site is open, but then it's communicated on social media that they're closed, he said. But that information was shared when Gaza's internet was down and people had no access to it. On Wednesday, the GHF said in a statement it had distributed three million meals across three of its aid sites without an incident. EARLIER | In March, officials said Palestinians could run out of water: Début du widget Widget. Passer le widget ? Fin du widget Widget. Retourner au début du widget ? Gaza water plant running on backup power as Israel cuts electricity Palestinian officials say people in Gaza could soon run out of clean drinking water. After Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza this weekend, a desalination plant in Deir al-Balah has been running at about 30 per cent capacity on backup generators. On Friday, at least 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a house belonging to the Ayyash family in Deir Al-Balah, taking the day's death toll to 37. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of more than two million and causing a severe hunger crisis. Thomson Reuters
Straits Times
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Israel commits 'extermination' in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians inspect the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 12, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo Israel commits 'extermination' in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say VIENNA - U.N. experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of "extermination" by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a "concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life." The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council on June 17. "We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza," former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement. "Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination," she added. The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached. Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased. When the commission's last report in March found Israel carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic. In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90% of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza. "Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination," it said. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there. "Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention," it said. "Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places," the commission added. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
27-05-2025
- General
- Straits Times
Palestinians wary as US-backed aid group begins operations in Gaza
Palestinians inspect the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, May 26, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas A Palestinian woman places a kettle over the fire outside her tent, where she took shelter after being displaced, in Gaza City May 26, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive take shelter in tents near Gaza's seaport, in Gaza City May 26, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa An Israeli tank stands on the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, May 27, 2025 REUTERS/Amir Cohen Smoke rises from North Gaza after an explosion, near the Israel-Gaza border as seen from Israel, May 27, 2025 REUTERS/Amir Cohen Israeli military vehicles operate inside Gaza, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, May 27, 2025 REUTERS/Amir Cohen A general view shows destruction in North Gaza, as seen from Israel, May 27, 2025 REUTERS/Amir Cohen Military vehicles stands on the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, May 27, 2025 REUTERS/Amir Cohen Trucks transport aid as Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it has commenced operations to begin distribution of aid, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 26, 2025. Gaza Humanitarian Foundation/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo CAIRO - Palestinians voiced wariness on Tuesday toward a U.S.-backed foundation set to bring aid to Gaza amid signs of famine, with Hamas warnings about biometric screening procedures keeping many away from distribution points. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it began operations on Monday, but there was little indication of Palestinians turning up at distribution centres in southern Gaza even after almost three months of Israel blockading the enclave. Palestinians said there was no known visits to new sites of distribution on Monday, but on Tuesday dozens headed to one of them established in Rafah to get some aid despite the warnings, at least three witnesses told Reuters. Others stayed away. "As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid," said Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven. "I am so scared because they said the company belongs to Israel and is a mercenary, and also because the resistance (Hamas) said not to go," he said in a message on the chat app WhatsApp. Israel says the Switzerland-based GHF is a U.S.-backed initiative and that its forces will not be involved in the distribution points where food will be handed out. But its endorsement of the plan, which resembles Israeli schemes floated previously, and its closeness with the U.S. has led many to question the neutrality of the foundation, including its own former chief, who resigned unexpectedly on Sunday. The United Nations and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they say undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict, based on need. "Humanitarian assistance must not be politicised or militarised," said Christian Cardon, chief spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Israel, at war with Gaza's dominant Hamas militant group since October 2023, imposed the blockade in early March accusing Hamas of stealing supplies and using them to entrench its position. Hamas has denied such accusations. Israeli officials said one of the advantages of the new aid system is the opportunity to screen recipients to exclude anyone found to be connected with Hamas. Humanitarian groups briefed on the foundation's plans say anyone accessing aid will have to submit to facial recognition technology that many Palestinians fear will end up in Israeli hands to be used to track and potentially target them. Details of exactly how the system will operate have not been made public. Israel makes extensive use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in the occupied West Bank and has been reported by Israeli and international media to be using such techniques in Gaza as well. BEGGING FOR BREAD Hamas, which has in recent months faced protests by many Palestinians who want the devastating war to end, has also warned residents against accessing GHF sites, saying Israel was using the company to collect intelligence information. "Do not go to Rafah ...Do not fall into the not risk your lives. Your homes are your fortress. Staying in your neighbourhoods is survival, and awareness is your protection," a statement published by the Hamas-linked Home Front said. "These schemes will be broken by the steadfastness of a people who do not know defeat," it added. The launch of the new system came days after Israel eased its blockade, allowing a trickle of aid trucks from international agencies into Gaza last week, including World Food Programme vehicles bringing flour to local bakeries. But the amount of aid that has entered the densely populated coastal enclave has been only a small fraction of the 500-600 trucks that U.N. agencies estimate are needed every day. "Before the war, my fridge used to be full of meat, chicken, dairy, soft drinks, everything, and now I am begging for a loaf of bread," Abu Ahmed told Reuters via a chat app. As a small aid flow has resumed, Israeli forces - now in control of large parts of Gaza - have kept up attacks on various targets around the enclave, killing 3,901 Palestinians since a two-month-old ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, according to the Gaza health ministry. In all, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's air and ground war, launched following a cross-border Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage into Gaza. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
24-05-2025
- General
- Straits Times
Diary of a Gazan family's descent toward starvation
Palestinian woman, Basma Al-Sheikh Khalil, eats with her grandchildren in front of the tent they took shelter after being displaced, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed Palestinian woman, Basma Al-Sheikh Khalil, holds a metal bowl of food as she stands in front of the tent they took shelter after being displaced, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed A Palestinian girl feeds her sister inside the tent that they took shelter after being displaced, in Gaza City, May 22, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa Palestinian woman, Mervat Hijazi, feeds her daughter inside the tent they took shelter after being displaced, in Gaza City, May 22, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa Palestinian woman, Mervat Hijazi, washes clothes inside the tent they took shelter after being displaced, in Gaza City, May 22, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa CAIRO/GAZA CITY - Mervat Hijazi and her nine children didn't eat at all on Thursday - save her underweight baby who had a sachet of peanut paste. "I'm so ashamed of myself for not being able to feed my children," Hijazi told Reuters from their tent pitched amid the rubble of Gaza City. "I cry at night when my baby cries and her stomach aches from hunger." Six-year-old Zaha can't sleep because of Israel's bombardment. "She wakes up terrified, shaking, and then remembers she didn't eat and is hungry. I put her back to sleep, promising her food in the morning. Of course I lie." Hijazi, 38, recounted a terrible week. Sunday, May 18: Her family was given about half a kilo of cooked lentils from a community kitchen run by a charity, half the amount she would normally use for a single meal. Monday: A local aid group was distributing some vegetables in the camp but there wasn't enough to go round and Hijazi's family didn't get any. Her 14-year-old daughter Menna went to the community kitchen and came back with a meagre amount of cooked potato. Everyone was hungry so they filled up by drinking water. Tuesday: The family received about half a kilo of cooked pasta from the kitchen. One daughter was also given some falafel by an uncle who lived nearby. Wednesday: A good day, relatively. They received a bowl of rice with lentils at the community kitchen. It wasn't nearly enough, but Menna went back and pleaded with them and they eventually gave her two other small dishes. "She is tough and keeps crying at them until they give her." Thursday: the kitchen was closed, the family couldn't find out why. They had nothing to eat except for the peanut sachet for 11-month-old Lama, received from a clinic as a nutritional supplement because baby milk formula has all but disappeared. "I don't have enough milk in my breasts to feed her because I hardly eat myself," said Hijazi, whose husband was killed early in the war as he cycled to get food from a charity kitchen. The Hijazis' plight is a snapshot of the misery plaguing the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. A global hunger monitor warned this month half a million people face starvation while famine looms. Israel has been bombarding and besieging Gaza since the territory's ruling group Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israeli border communities on October 7, 2023. The Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, according to Israel, while Gazan authorities say the ensuing Israeli offensive has killed more than 53,000 people. Israeli authorities have repeatedly said there is enough food in Gaza to feed the population and accuse Hamas of stealing aid in order to feed its fighters and to maintain control over the territory, an accusation the group denies. This week Israel started allowing some food to enter the territory for the first time since March 2, including flour and baby food but it says a new U.S.-sponsored system run by private contractors will begin operating soon. The plan will involve distribution centres in areas controlled by Israeli troops, a plan the U.N. and aid agencies have attacked, saying it will lead to further displacement of the population and that aid should flow through existing networks. Hijazi said her family had seen no sign yet of the new aid and she is consumed by worry for her baby, Lama, who was 5 kg when weighed last week. That's about half the average for a healthy one-year-old girl according to World Health Organization charts. This week the family have had, at most, a single meal a day to share, the mother added. U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said this week that the amount of aid Israel was proposing to allow into Gaza was "a drop in the ocean" of what was needed. WE HAVE NO SAY IN THIS WAR The tent shared by Hijazi and her children is large and rectangular with a portrait of their dead husband and father Mohammed hanging on one side above a thin mattress and some mostly empty jars and stacked plastic bowls. The family is from the Sabra district of Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, where Israel's first assault was concentrated. They decided to flee the district on the day Mohammed was killed - November 17, 2023. They went south to the central Gazan area of Deir al-Balah, first staying with family and then moving to an encampment for the displaced. They returned to Gaza City after a ceasefire was agreed in January, but their home had been damaged and they are now living in a camp for the displaced. Hunger makes them all listless, Hijazi said, and they often lack enough energy even to clean their tent. When Reuters visited, some of the children lay sprawled silent on the floor. But they still have jobs to do. Menna is often sent to queue at the food kitchen. She arrives more than an hour before it opens, knowing that otherwise she would stand no chance of getting food and often waits another hour before she is served, Hijazi said. On days when a tanker does not bring water to their part of the camp, Mustafa, 15, and Ali, 13, have to walk to a standpipe in another district and lug heavy plastic jerrycans back to the tent - a chore made harder by their hunger. Everyone remembers life before the war and they talk about the meals they used to enjoy. Mohammed Hijazi was a plumber and earned a good wage. "People used to envy us for the variety of food we had," his wife said, recalling breakfasts of eggs, beans, falafel, cheese, yoghurt and bread, and lunches and dinners of meat, rice, chicken and vegetables. Her 16-year-old daughter Malik talked about burgers, chocolate and Coca-Cola. "We are civilians. We have no say in this war. All we want is for the war to end," Hijazi said. "We want to go back to live in homes - real homes. We want to sleep with full stomachs and in peace, not scared of dying while we sleep." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
