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Unicef reports that acute malnutrition has doubled in one month in the north of Gaza strip

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1 in 3 children under 2 years of age are today acutely malnourished in the north, according to nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners

NEW YORK, 15 MARCH 2024 –31 per cent – or 1 in 3 children under 2 years of age – in the Northern Gaza Strip suffer from acute malnutrition, a staggering escalation from 15.6 per cent in January.

Malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip due to the wide-reaching impacts of the war and ongoing restrictions on aid delivery.

At least 23 children in Northern Gaza Strip have reportedly died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks, adding to the mounting toll of children killed in the Strip in this current conflict – about 13,450 reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners in the north in February found that 4.5 per cent of the children in shelters and health centers suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, which puts children at highest risk of medical complications and death unless they receive urgent therapeutic feeding and treatment, which is not available. The prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in the north has increased from 13 per cent to as high as 25 per cent.

“The speed at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis in Gaza has unfolded is shocking, especially when desperately needed assistance has been at the ready just a few miles away,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director. “We have repeatedly attempted to deliver additional aid and we have repeatedly called for the access challenges we have faced for months to be addressed. Instead, the situation for children is getting worse by each passing day. Our efforts in providing life-saving aid are being hampered by unnecessary restrictions, and those are costing children their lives.”

Screenings conducted for the first time in Khan Younis, in the middle area of the Gaza Strip, found 28 per cent of children under 2 years have acute malnutrition, more than 10 per cent of which have severe wasting.

Even in Rafah, the southern enclave with the most access to aid, the results from screenings among children under 2 years doubled from 5 per cent who were acutely malnourished in January to about 10 per cent by the end of February, with severe wasting rising fourfold from 1 per cent to more than 4 per cent over the month.

UN agencies have been warning of the risk of a famine in the Gaza Strip since December. In January, the emergency thresholds for acute malnutrition in children were exceeded. Acute malnutrition among children has continued to rise rapidly and at scale and there is a high risk it will continue to increase across the Gaza Strip, costing more lives, in the absence of more humanitarian assistance and the restoration of essential services.

UNICEF has reached children with treatment for acute malnutrition, including the use of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), Ready to Use Infant Formula and preventative micronutrients supplements containing iron and other essential nutrients for pregnant women. More supplies are due to arrive this week, but this is still not enough to address the needs.

“We are doing everything we can to avert a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it is not enough,” said Russell. “An immediate humanitarian ceasefire continues to provide the only chance to save children’s lives and end their suffering. We also need multiple land border crossings that allow aid to be reliably delivered at scale, including to northern Gaza, along with the security assurances and unimpeded passage needed to distribute that aid, without delays or access impediments.”

Continue ReadingUnicef reports that acute malnutrition has doubled in one month in the north of Gaza strip

Australia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks in Canberra on August 8, 2023. (Photo: Penny Wong/Facebook)

“Restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum,” said one Australian Green senator. “The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza.”

Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

“The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe” through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.

In addition to restoring $6 million in UNRWA funding, Wong said Australia would contribute another $2 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund and would deploy a C-17 Globemaster transport plane to assist humanitarian airdrops over Gaza.

Sen. Mehreen Faruqi of New South Wales and the Australian Greens welcomed the shift, asserting that “restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum” Australia should do.

“The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza,” Faruqi stressed. “Starvation is a weapon of war, and Israel is blocking aid to reach the people of Gaza in brazen contravention of the [International Court of Justice’s] ruling” ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts.

“I hope this is the start of the Labor government breaking away from their unquestioning and immoral support for Israel,” the senator added.

Simon Birmingham, leader of the center-right Liberal opposition in the Senate, said his party does not support the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “acting without and ahead of the United States in terms of decisions around this funding.”

Following Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that 12 of the more than 13,000 UNRWA workers in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack, Australia and nine other nations including the United States cut off funding to the largest humanitarian aid organization operating in the besieged coastal enclave.

UNRWA subsequently terminated nine employees in response to the unfounded Israeli claims, without any evidence to support their firing. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini later called the move an act of “reverse due process.”

The European Union and nations including Canada and Sweden have also reinstated funding for UNRWA, which Lazzarini said “is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations.” The agency has been struggling to provide shelter, aid, and other lifesaving services to Gazans facing not only Israeli bombs and bullets but also a genocidal siege and blockade that are starving Palestinians to death.

Australia’s decision came as Israeli attacks on aid convoys, food distribution centers, and desperate, starving Palestinians in Gaza continued. On Thursday, Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 150 others as they awaited delivery of humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City. The previous day, a UNRWA staffer was among five people killed and more than 20 wounded in an attack on a food distribution center in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Israeli officials claimed the slain man was a Hamas commander.

According to UNRWA, at least 165 of the agency’s staff members have been killed since October 7. Over 150 UNRWA facilities have been attacked by Israeli forces, while more than 400 Palestinians have been slain while seeking shelter under the United Nations flag.

UNRWA also says its workers have been tortured by Israeli troops trying to force them to falsely confess to participating in the October 7 attacks.

Gaza officials said earlier this week that at least 400 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid have been killed by Israeli forces since the February 29 “Flour Massacre,” in which at least 118 people were killed and more than 760 others wounded while waiting for an aid convoy in Gaza City.

More than 112,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since October 7, including people missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the strip’s hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. The majority of the dead are women and children. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Disease and starvation are rampant, and a growing number of Palestinians—mostly children but also elders and other vulnerable people—are starving to death.

After 161 days of near-constant slaughter, there is still no cease-fire in sight.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingAustralia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans

Israeli Assurances on US Weapons and International Law Called ‘Sick Joke’

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L) visit the site of the shooting in Hebron, West Bank on August 21, 2023.  (Photo: Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“We know Israel won’t comply so long as there are no consequences,” said one advocacy group. “The U.S. must cut off weapons now!”

In news that one policy expert said could have been ripped from the satirical newspaper The Onion, Israeli officials gave a written assurance to the Biden administration on Friday that it would use U.S. weapons in accordance with international law.

The assurance comes more than five months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in which the country’s U.S.-backed military has killed at least 31,490 Palestinians, including more than 12,300 children, while claiming to be targeting Hamas members.

Assal Rad, research director at the National Iranian American Council, noted that Israel has also killed at least 95 journalists in Gaza, attacked healthcare facilities, and starved civilians by blocking humanitarian aid deliveries while explicitly calling on the Israel Defense Forces to commit genocidal acts.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant signed the letter to the Biden administration weeks after the White House released a national security memorandum (NSM-20) saying Secretary of State Antony Blinken must “obtain credible and reliable written assurances” from any country receiving U.S. weapons, stating that the country “will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

In December, an Amnesty International investigation found that U.S.-made munitions had been used by the IDF in two illegal airstrikes on residential buildings, which killed more than 43 people, including 19 children.

NSM-20 also says a country receiving U.S. arms must “facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance and United States government-supported international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance.”

“This is nonsense,” Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns for Medical Aid for Palestinians, said of Gallant’s letter on Friday.

While relentlessly assaulting civilian targets in Gaza, Israel has allowed only a fraction of the humanitarian aid that’s needed into the enclave. In recent weeks, the IDF has killed an estimated 400 Palestinians who were trying to access aid, according to officials in Gaza.

According to Axios, which first reported on Israel’s communication, Blinken has until March 25 to certify that Gallant’s assurances are credible.

Gallant is among the top Israeli officials who have used genocidal rhetoric regarding Palestinians since the country began its bombardment in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. He said publicly in October that the IDF was fighting “human animals” in Gaza—home to about 2.3 million people, nearly half of whom are children.

The letter from the defense minister amounted to “a sick joke,” said author and political analyst Josh Ruebner.

“Israel’s assurances to President Joe Biden that it won’t use U.S. weapons to violate international law and won’t block U.S. aid from reaching starving Palestinians are clear and blatant lies,” said the Institute for Middle East Understanding. “We know Israel won’t comply so long as there are no consequences. The U.S. must cut off weapons now!”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingIsraeli Assurances on US Weapons and International Law Called ‘Sick Joke’

‘Another Flour Massacre’: IDF Reportedly Kills 20 Waiting for Aid in Northern Gaza

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians receive humanitarian aid supplies brought by trucks to Gaza City on March 13, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Our governments did nothing to hold Israel accountable last time it attacked desperate hungry people seeking aid in Gaza,” said one aid campaigner. “So why wouldn’t it do the exact same thing again?”

Gaza health officials said Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and injured over 150 more as they waited for humanitarian aid in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, where deliveries of food, medicine, and other necessities have become virtually impossible due to Israel’s persistent obstruction and attacks.

Mohammed Ghurab, the director of emergency services at a hospital in the area, told AFP that there were “direct shots by the occupation forces” at people waiting for a truck carrying food. Northern Gaza is in the grip of famine-like conditions, and desperate people there have resorted to eating weeds and livestock feed amid Israel’s suffocating blockade.

Dozens of people, including children, have died of starvation and dehydration in northern Gaza in recent weeks.

Thursday’s attack took place at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza City, according to the territory’s health ministry, which said nearby hospitals were “unable to deal with” the influx of wounded patients.

Horrific video footage posted to social media shows bloody bodies lying motionless amid debris. Middle East Eye reported that “a truck transporting aid into Gaza” later “collided with a vehicle carrying victims” of Thursday’s attack to a hospital.

“Eyewitnesses said the area was struck by what they said sounded like tank or artillery fire,” CNN reported. “The incident at the Kuwaiti Roundabout followed earlier violence at the same site on Wednesday, where large crowds were waiting for a food distribution. At least seven people were killed and 86 others injured after Israeli troops opened fire.”

A day earlier, Israel allowed an aid convoy to enter Gaza’s north directly through an Israeli border crossing for the first time since the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1768379577418600694 [Video on X appears unavailable]

Ziad Saeed Madoukh, who was shot in the foot during Thursday’s attack, told the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor that Israeli forces started “heavily firing live ammunition towards the crowd of civilians as soon as aid trucks approached” the roundabout.

“Another survivor of today’s massacre, Ibrahim Al-Najjar, was shot in the hand by Israeli forces,” the rights group said. “Al-Najjar told Euro-Med Monitor’s team that he tried to get a bag of flour for his children at the Kuwait Roundabout, but that he and others were subjected to live ammunition and artillery shells despite gathering in an area previously designated as safe by Israel’s army.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied attacking Gazans at the aid distribution point and said it was “analyzing” the incident.

Thursday’s bloodshed drew comparisons to the February 29 attack in which Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of starving Gazans trying to get their hands on bags of flour. The attack was later dubbed the “flour massacre.”

The Israeli military claimed that most of the deaths were caused by a stampede, but testimony from witnesses and hospital officials as well as bullets found at the scene refuted that narrative.

“Our governments did nothing to hold Israel accountable last time it attacked desperate hungry people seeking aid in Gaza,” said Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians. “So why wouldn’t it do the exact same thing again?”

Prior to Thursday’s attack—described as “another flour massacre”—Gaza authorities estimated that Israeli forces had killed at least 400 people waiting for humanitarian aid deliveries. Between mid-January and the end of February, the United Nations documented at least 14 instances of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathered to receive humanitarian aid.

“This is something that is preventable and shouldn’t be happening,” Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera.

Asked Wednesday about Israel’s repeated attacks on Palestinians awaiting aid, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “we want to see it investigated promptly, and, if appropriate, see accountability.”

“We also press them to take measures to keep it from happening again,” said Miller, who did not warn of any consequences for Israel’s military if it continues to massacre desperate civilians.

A group of senators warned earlier this week that it is a violation of U.S. law to arm a government that is obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Another Flour Massacre’: IDF Reportedly Kills 20 Waiting for Aid in Northern Gaza

25 Groups Demand Biden ‘Urgently Comply With US Law’ and End Israel Arms Sales

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A U.S.-supplied guided munition is prepared to be loaded onto an American-made Israeli Air Force F-15 in this undated photo. (Photo: Israeli Air Force)

“U.S. weapons, security assistance, and blanket political support have contributed to an unparalleled humanitarian crisis and possible war crimes in Gaza,” the NGOs wrote.

More than two dozen human rights groups on Tuesday implored U.S. President Joe Biden “urgently comply” with domestic law by suspending arms sales to Israel and pressuring its far-right government to end its genocidal policy of blocking aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza.

In a joint letter to Biden, the 25 organizations asserted that his administration’s “unconditional arms transfers and other security assistance” to Israel apparently “violate Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2378-1), which prohibits the United States from providing security assistance or arms sales to any country when the president is made aware that the government ‘prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.'”

“U.S. weapons, security assistance, and blanket political support have contributed to an unparalleled humanitarian crisis and possible war crimes in Gaza,” the groups wrote. “We demand that you urgently comply with U.S. law, end U.S. support for catastrophic human suffering in Gaza, and use your leverage to protect civilians and ensure the impartial provision of humanitarian assistance.”

The letter continues:

Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that more than 30,000 Palestinians—at least two-thirds of them women and children—have been killed in Gaza and over 70,000 wounded, with thousands more estimated to be buried under the rubble. Over 90% of people in Gaza are acutely food insecure, with a growing number of children dying of starvation and dehydration. Over 75% of Gaza’s population is already displaced, and the level of damage to shelter and infrastructure means people increasingly have nowhere safe to go nor reliable provisions if and when they move. As civilians face bombardment, disease, and starvation, lifesaving healthcare is increasingly inaccessible.

The letter acknowledges the Biden administration’s efforts at providing very limited humanitarian relief to Gazans, as well as its public admission that “Israel is obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians.”

“But since October 7, the government of Israel has failed to facilitate the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid, including through additional border crossings into Gaza and northern Gaza in particular; blocked the entry of many humanitarian aid trucks; denied humanitarian access requests; enforced arbitrary customs restrictions on humanitarian goods; and attacked humanitarian workers and their facilities as well as civilians seeking aid,” the groups said.

The letter points out that these acts are part of a stated Israeli policy of “complete siege” on Gaza, which experts say constitutes an act of genocide. In January, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in a South Africa-led case that found Israel was “plausibly” committing genocide. The ICJ ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts, an order that rights groups say it has failed to obey.

On Tuesday, a group of U.S. senators led by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) also wrote a letter to Biden stressing that his administration is compelled by law to end arms sales to Israel if it keeps blocking aid to Gaza.

The U.S. provides Israel with around $4 billion in annual military aid. Since October 7, the Biden administration has requested an additional $14.3 billion in assistance for Israel, while repeatedly circumventing Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid.

The groups’ letter urges Biden to “use your leverage” with Israel “to protect civilians and ensure the impartial provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Biden administration officials have dubiously insisted that they have no such leverage.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue Reading25 Groups Demand Biden ‘Urgently Comply With US Law’ and End Israel Arms Sales