A six-year-old Palestinian boy and a 30-year-old man have died from malnutrition, the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza has said, as hunger-related deaths climb and Israeli bombardment continues across the besieged territory.
The deaths of Wissam Abu Mohsen and young Jamal Fadi al-Najjar on Tuesday came shortly after Gaza’s Health Ministry said five more people had died of famine within 24 hours, bringing the total number of starvation-related fatalities since the start of Israel’s war to 227, including more than 100 children..
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged Israel to allow it to stock medical supplies in Gaza before the military proceeds with its plan to seize Gaza City, a move that has drawn international condemnation.
“We want to stock up, and we all hear about ‘more humanitarian supplies are allowed in’, well it’s not happening yet, or it’s happening at a way too low a pace,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.
Separately, Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan and 23 of their European allies said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had reached “unimaginable levels”.
“Famine is unfolding before our eyes. Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation,” the foreign ministers of the countries said in a joint statement published by Britain. “We call on the government of Israel to provide authorisation for all international NGO aid shipments and to unblock essential humanitarian actors from operating.”
Israel attacks ‘safe zones’, rescue workers
At least 67 Palestinians have been killed since dawn on Tuesday, hospital sources in Gaza told Al Jazeera. In the last 24 hours, 31 aid seekers have died.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Israeli forces struck multiple areas, including al-Mawasi, designated by Israel as a “safe zone”.
“A family of five have been killed in their makeshift shelter there earlier this morning. There have also been concentrated attacks on Gaza City, where residential homes have been targeted,” she said.
“A family of four, the al-Nadeem family, has been targeted and a young girl has been rescued, but there are many people trapped under the rubble.”
Rescue operations have also come under fire. Palestinian Civil Defence said one of its members, Abdul Rahman Maher Abu Latifa, was killed in an Israeli strike on his tent in al-Mawasi. Both his parents were also killed. The service said 137 of its members have been killed since the war began.
Other strikes killed three members of the al-Hasari family in Gaza City, while one member of the al-Salmi family also died. Twenty more people remain trapped under rubble.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed the aftermath of an Israeli attack on central Gaza City, with a stream of blood running down the street as people carried a wounded man to a vehicle.
Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said Israeli bombardment of Gaza City has intensified for three consecutive days, using “all types of weapons … bombs, drones and also highly explosive munitions that cause massive destruction to civilian homes”.
Israel ‘blocking’ food items
Israel is also blocking the entry of more than 430 food items into Gaza, despite allowing some aid trucks through last month under international pressure, Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Tuesday.
In a statement, it said banned items include “frozen meat of all kinds, frozen fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruits”, along with “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick”.
It added that Israel had directly targeted food sources, by not just preventing aid, but deliberately bombing 44 food banks, killing dozens of workers in them, and targeting “57 food distribution centres with bombardment”.
Earlier, the Office accused Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military body reporting on aid deliveries into the enclave, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip”.
This comes a day after Israel targeted and killed a team of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City – an attack that has sparked protests in countries across the world.
Israel is also facing condemnation for its plans to seize of Gaza City and forcibly displace nearly one million Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not given a clear timetable for this, saying on Sunday that it would happen “fairly quickly”.
Palestine’s Foreign Ministry has blamed the international community for inaction over “the genocide of our people” in Gaza, urging global powers to uphold their moral, legal and political obligations.
“Despite the international consensus … on the need to implement international humanitarian law and human rights, the occupying power [Israel] continues to expand its aggression and deepen its use of starvation, thirst, and denial of medical treatment as weapons in the war,” it said in a statement on X.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that Israel’s war has killed 61,599 Palestinians and wounded 154,088 since October 7, 2023. Since May 27, when Israel and the United States introduced the new GHF food distribution system in Gaza, 1,838 Palestinians seeking aid have been killed and more than 13,409 wounded, the ministry said.
