



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

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, due to a shortage of medical-grade formula entering the strip.
Despite a recent policy change by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow “minimal aid” into the strip following a total blockade of food, water, shelter, and medication, it has proven far too little to keep hospitals running and keep people fed. It has proven especially deadly for children.
The AP report quotes Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatrics and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few functional medical facilities left in Gaza.
Last week, al-Farah warned that the hospital’s stock of milk was “completely depleted,” and that unless aid was delivered immediately, the babies would face “an avoidable disaster.” The widely publicized call was answered with the shipment of 20 boxes of formula from the U.S. aid group Rahma Worldwide.
Al-Farah said this was enough to meet the needs of 10 babies for two weeks, but warned that in the long run it would be far too little, especially with no guarantee of aid in the future.
“This is not enough at all,” he told the AP. “It solved the problem temporarily, but what we need is a permeant solution: Lift the siege.”
Many other hospitals reported shortages of formula that had not been answered, such as Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, which was completely out of stock.
Fortified milk has become increasingly necessary in Gaza due to the increasing number of premature births. In May, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that as a result of widespread hunger, 1 in 5 children is now born pre-term or underweight. That malnutrition has also left many new mothers unable to breastfeed.
Dr. Asaad Nawajha, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital, told Middle East Eye that the blockade has proven catastrophic for the health of both children and their mothers.
“This all goes back to the [harsh] conditions mothers endure amid this vicious war on the Gaza Strip,” Nawajha said. “Due to the lack of nutritious items entering the Gaza Strip, both mothers and children have been exposed to illnesses resulting from malnutrition.”
The Israeli government’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has insisted that the amount of aid allowed into Gaza is sufficient to provide for the population.
On June 22, COGAT announced that 430 aid trucks had been allowed to enter the strip during the preceding week. However, this is but a fraction of the more than 600 trucks per day that the United Nations is necessary to meet their needs.
Many people who have come to aid sites administered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to obtain the meager supplies available, have been met with deadly violence from the Israeli military.
Since May 27, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 injured by Israeli forces at these sites, according to the U.N. Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Gaza Media Office reports at least 19 fatal incidents at these GHF sites over the span of just one month.
Many of the victims have been children. According to a study released Thursday by the humanitarian group Save the Children, children have been killed at 10 of those 19 incidents.
“No child should be killed searching for food,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. “This is not a humanitarian operation—it’s a death trap.”
Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).






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

The anti-poverty group Oxfam America has issued a forceful response to reporting that the Trump administration plans to give tens of millions dollars to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed aid organization which uses private U.S. military firms and whose rollout the United Nations and international aid groups have strongly objected to.
Reuters was first to report on Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to give $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). A document reviewed by the outlet shows that the amount was authorized last week under a “priority directive” from the White House and the U.S. Department of State. Per Reuters, $7 million has already been dispersed. Sources told the outlet that the administration may approve separate monthly grants for the entity.
Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman said in a statement on Tuesday that the Trump administration is poised to shell out for an aid organization “formed to distribute food parcels without any grounding in the reality of the crisis in Gaza.”
Maxman accused GHF of delivering only a fraction of the number of meals that the population needs and alleged the group is distributing food that families can’t prepare without fuel and clean water. She also said the organization has pushed aid further out of reach for the vulnerable populations who can’t walk long distances to its distribution sites.
“We urge the Trump administration and Congress to instead put its full support behind funding and ensuring safe access for established humanitarian organizations to do the work that is proven to save lives,” added Maxman.
She also highlighted that the distribution sites have been marred by violence.
The U.N.’s human rights office said on Tuesday that at least 410 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces “while trying to fetch from controversial new aid hubs in Gaza—a likely war crime,” according to a U.N. News article posted that same day.
Jonathan Whittall, the head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told journalists on Monday that since Israel’s total blockade was partially lifted in late May, “people have been killed almost daily while trying to get food.”
In a statement shared with CBS on Tuesday, GHF pushed back on what it called “false allegations of attacks near aid distributions sites.” The group also said that the “Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry is not a credible source of information, as it fails to report any U.N. convoys or distribution sites that are linked to violent incidents,” according to CBS, whose story focused on comments from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East commissioner general decrying GHF.
In that same story, CBSreported that the Gaza Ministry of Health said 79 people had been killed in Gaza over the last day. Fifty-one of those people had died near GHF sites, per CBS, citing the Gaza Ministry of Health.
And on Monday, over a dozen human rights organizations sent a letter to GHF calling for an end to the “privatized, militarized” GHF aid model and urging any parties involved with GHF and the international community in general to press for aid to be distributed through established international relief operations.
“Individuals and corporate entities involved in the planning, financing, or execution of the GHF scheme may incur criminal liability—including under universal jurisdiction statutes—for aiding and abetting war crimes such as the forcible displacement of civilians, starvation as a method of warfare, and denial of humanitarian access,” the letter warned.
The groups behind the letter include the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Applied Legal Studies, and others.
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).


This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The UN’s top official for children and armed conflict issued a stark warning on Wednesday to the Security Council, urging immediate action to protect children amid surging violence in conflict zones, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
Virginia Gamba, the UN envoy for Children and Armed Conflict told the Council; “The year 2024 witnessed an unprecedented escalation of violence against children, as well as a devastating record of attacks on humanitarian personnel and United Nations staff on the ground.”
“All too often, children continue to bear the brunt of relentless hostilities, indiscriminate attacks, blunt disregard for ceasefires, peace efforts, and shocking disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law,” she said. “All of these, in a context of deepening humanitarian crises at unprecedented levels.”
Gamba said the denial of humanitarian access has become “one of the gravest obstacles to protecting children in conflict zones,” citing attacks on aid convoys, detention of aid workers and bureaucratic barriers to essential services like food, healthcare and education.
“We cannot continue to stand by and watch with no action what is happening to the children globally, and especially in Gaza,” she said. “The scale of destruction and suffering borne by the children of Gaza defies and contravenes every human standard.”
READ: UN warns of devastating civilian toll amid Gaza aid crisis
“There is no justification for depriving children of access to the means for their survival, including access to food, health care and security,” she added.
Gamba said she has called on Israel “to facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief to civilians in need in the Gaza Strip,” and urged “all parties to the conflict in Gaza to expedite the distribution of aid because international humanitarian law applies to every party, in every conflict, and it must be respected.”
Noting that almost half of all grave violations in 2024 were committed by non-state armed groups, including “killing and maiming, abduction, recruitment and use, and sexual violence,” she emphasized that “this is unacceptable.”
“The deliberate targeting and military use of schools, hospitals, and essential water and sanitation infrastructure must end,” she said, urging states to uphold international legal commitments to protect children.
“Let us renew the global consensus on child protection and uphold every child’s fundamental right to life, health, education, and a safe future,” Gamba said.
“We cannot afford to return to the dark ages, where children were invisible and voiceless victims of armed conflict,” she warned. “Please do not allow them to slip back into the shadows of despair.”
Echoing Gamba’s concerns, UNICEF Director of Child Protection Sheema Sen Gupta told the Security Council: “Each violation against children in every country around the globe represents a moral failure. And each leaves scars that may never fully heal.”
“In Israel and the state of Palestine last year, over 8,000 grave violations have been verified,” she said. “In Gaza, children bear the brunt of this suffering. Nowhere else in the world has such a high number of grave violations been recorded since this Council established the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism 20 years ago.”
“Children are not collateral damage. They are not soldiers. They are not bargaining chips. They are children. They deserve to be safe. They deserve justice. They deserve a future,” she said. “This just cannot be the new normal.”
READ: Hamas urges international, Arab countries to stop Israel’s daily massacres of starving Gazans
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


