famine

‘No time to lose’: UN agencies call for immediate humanitarian access to famine-declared Gaza

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Palestinians struggling with hunger flock to an aid distribution point near the Zikim Crossing in northwestern Gaza to access limited aid supplies amid Israeli attacks in Gaza Strip on August 8, 2025. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras – Anadolu Agency]

UN agencies on Friday warned that famine is already claiming lives in Gaza and urged immediate humanitarian access and a ceasefire, stressing that children are at acute risk of starvation, Anadolu reports.

The joint statement of The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO) came following the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) declaration of famine in Gaza Governorate, one of the five regions of the Gaza Strip, where Israel has killed nearly 62,200 Palestinians since October 2023.

The global hunger monitor also projected that famine will spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis within weeks.

FAO said people in Gaza have run out of survival options, with hunger and malnutrition now killing daily, and the destruction of cropland, livestock, fisheries, and other food systems worsening the crisis.

“Our priority must now be safe and sustained access for large-scale food assistance,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu Qu said, adding that access to food is “not a privilege – it is a basic human right.”

The WFP, for its part, noted that famine warnings had been clear for months.

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said what is needed now is a surge of aid, safer conditions on the ground, and effective distribution networks to reach everyone in need.

READ: IPC formally declares famine in Gaza Governorate, marks 1st in Middle East

Full humanitarian access and a ceasefire now are critical to save lives,” she added.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: “As we have repeatedly warned, the signs were unmistakable: children with wasted bodies, too weak to cry or eat; babies dying from hunger and preventable disease; parents arriving at clinics with nothing left to feed their children.”

“There is no time to lose,” she said, warning that without an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access, famine will spread and more children will die. Russell added that children on the brink of starvation need the therapeutic feeding that UNICEF provides.

For his part, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called a ceasefire “an absolute and moral imperative,” saying the world had waited too long while tragic and unnecessary deaths mounted from what he described as a “man-made famine.”

He warned that widespread malnutrition is making even common illnesses fatal, especially for children, and that Gaza’s health system, run by “hungry and exhausted health workers,” is unable to cope.

“Gaza must be urgently supplied with food and medicines to save lives and begin the process of reversing malnutrition,” he said, stressing that hospitals must be protected, aid blockages must end, and “peace must be restored, so that healing can begin.”

READ: UN humanitarian chief says Gaza famine ‘openly promoted’ by Israel

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
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Continue Reading‘No time to lose’: UN agencies call for immediate humanitarian access to famine-declared Gaza

Scottish, Wales and Irish MPs call on Starmer to recall Parliament and ‘impose sanctions’ on Israel

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/scottish-wales-and-irish-mps-call-starmer-recall-parliament-and-impose-sanctions-israel

 Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, August 16, 2025

PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer was urged today to recall Parliament to “impose immediate sanctions” on Israel in a joint letter signed by politicians in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The appeal, backed by senior figures across multiple parties, calls on the Prime Minister to take decisive action to end the crisis in Gaza amid long-standing demands for sanctions against Israel, growing international outrage at the genocide, and anger over the government’s crackdown on pro-Palestine protests.

Campaigners have raised a contempt of court complaint against Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, claiming she misled the public by saying that Palestine Action had been proscribed due to violence against people, when legal documents show the decision was based on property damage.

Signatories to the letter include Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, SDLP leader Claire Hanna, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth and Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Liz Saville-Roberts.

The letter says: “The humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is both man-made and avoidable.

“It is characterised not only by relentless bombardment and destruction, but by the deliberate creation of conditions that are starving a civilian population.

“The blocking of food, water and medical supplies has precipitated what UN agencies and humanitarian experts describe as a man-made famine; one that is rapidly claiming lives and inflicting irreparable harm on an already traumatised population.”

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/scottish-wales-and-irish-mps-call-starmer-recall-parliament-and-impose-sanctions-israel

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Continue ReadingScottish, Wales and Irish MPs call on Starmer to recall Parliament and ‘impose sanctions’ on Israel

Israeli strike on Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza kills staff member

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Members of the Palestine Red Crescent and other emergency services pray by the bodies of fellow rescuers killed a week earlier by Israeli forces, during a funeral procession at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2025. [Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images]

An Israeli airstrike targeted the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in southern Gaza early Sunday, killing a staff member and injuring two others, the organization said, Anadolu reports.

Red Crescent said Israeli fighter jets hit the first floor of its building in the city of Khan Younis, setting it on fire and causing significant damage.

“Our headquarters’ location is well known to the occupying forces and clearly marked with the protective red emblem. This was not a mistake,” the organization said. “This deliberate attack on a protected Red Crescent facility is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law — it is a war crime.”

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier reported that a staff member was killed and three others were injured in the attack.

The society renewed its call for “accountability and for the protection of all humanitarian and medical personnel.”

READ: Illegal Israeli settlers kill Palestinian, wound 8 others in West Bank town attack

The attack came after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited Gaza on Saturday to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory, where deaths by hunger and starvation have climbed in recent days.

“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” said to Qu Dongyu, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal war on Gaza, killing more than 60,400 Palestinians since October 2023.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: No arms to Israel: Canada reaffirms Gaza arms ban

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

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Continue ReadingIsraeli strike on Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza kills staff member

French president calls for full humanitarian access to Gaza, says airdrops ‘not enough’

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France’s President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of humanitarian aid destined to Gaza, at the Egyptian Red Crescent warehouse in Egypt’s northeastern city of Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, about 55 kilometres west of the border with the Gaza Strip, on 8 April 2025. [LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called for full humanitarian access to Gaza and said that the airdrops are “not enough,” Anadolu reports.

“Airdrops are not enough. Israel must allow full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine,” Macron wrote on X about carrying out a food airdrop operation in Gaza.

He also thanked Jordanian, Emirati, and German partners for their support in the operation.

This comes as the Israeli army announced Saturday that it would allow limited quantities of aid to be airdropped over Gaza and that it had begun a “local tactical pause in military activity” in specific areas of the Gaza Strip to permit humanitarian access.

On Tuesday, France announced that it would organize four flights carrying 10 tons of food each into the Gaza Strip starting Friday.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 154 people have died of starvation since October 2023, including 89 children.

The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: Hamas welcomes Macron’s intention to recognise the State of Palestine

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

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Continue ReadingFrench president calls for full humanitarian access to Gaza, says airdrops ‘not enough’