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Tag: Save the Children

  • 100+ Aid Groups Decry Global Inaction as Israeli Siege Starves Gaza

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

    Palestinians queue to receive hot meals at a charity kitchen in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

    “States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.”

    A coalition of more than 100 aid organizations issued a dire warning Wednesday about worsening humanitarian conditions on the ground in the Gaza Strip, where starvation continues to spread under the Israeli government’s suffocating blockade.

    The groups, including Save the Children and Oxfam, called on the international community to pressure Israel to “open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, U.N.-led mechanism; end the siege, and agree to a cease-fire now.”

    “Just outside Gaza, in warehouses—and even within Gaza itself—tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organizations blocked from accessing or delivering them,” the groups said in a joint statement. “The government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.”

    The aid groups said their colleagues in Gaza are among those impacted. “With supplies now totally depleted,” they said, “humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”

    The statement was released amid harrowing evidence that the manufactured hunger emergency in Gaza is rapidly intensifying, with at least 21 Palestinian children dying of starvation over just the past several days. Since May, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food aid, mostly near hubs run by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). A spokesperson for the Trump State Department declared Tuesday that GHF operations have “been a tremendous success” despite the repeated massacres at its sites and still-spreading famine across the enclave.

    “Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and cease-fires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the aid coalition said Wednesday. “It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage. The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.”

    The groups decried inadequate deals—such as the European Union’s recent agreement with Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza—and “symbolic gestures” like food airdrops as “a smokescreen for inaction.”

    In the absence of “real change on the ground,” the groups said, “children starve while waiting for promises that never arrive.”

    “They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale,” the coalition said. “States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.”

    The aid groups’ warnings echoed those of U.N. officials such as World Food Program emergency director Ross Smith, who said Tuesday that the hunger crisis in Gaza “has reached new and astonishing levels of desperation.

    “We have a third of the population who are not eating for multiple days in a row—this includes women and children,” said Smith. “We see severe, acute malnutrition surging. Almost 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible.”

    “People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance every day,” Smith added. “And we are seeing this escalate, day by day.”

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

    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
    Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect 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 obect 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.
    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.

  • Hundreds of Thousands Form ‘Red Line’ Around The Hague

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

    Tens of thousands of people dressed in red marched through the streets of The Hague on June 15, 2025 to demand more action from the Dutch government against what they termed a “genocide” in Gaza. Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Oxfam organized the demonstration through the city to the International Court of Justice, creating a so-called “red line”. Many waving Palestinian flags and some chanting “Stop the Genocide”, the demonstrators turned a central park in the city into a sea of red on a sunny afternoon. Photo by Koen van Weel / ANP / AFP

    The red line the government has failed to set.

    Hundreds of thousands of people dressed in red marched through the streets of The Hague on Sunday to demand more action against the “genocide” in Gaza.

    NGOs such as Amnesty International, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and Oxfam organized the demonstration, which ran through the city to the International Court of Justice. The protesters were all dressed in red, creating a “red line”.

    Organisers described it as the country’s largest demonstration in two decades. Many waving Palestinian flags and some chanting “Stop the Genocide”, the demonstrators turned a central park in the city into a sea of red on a sunny afternoon.

    “The Dutch cabinet still refuses to draw a red line. That is why we do it, for as long as necessary,” Marjon Rozema of Amnesty International Netherlands said in a statement.

    Protesters walked a 5-kilometer loop around the city center of The Hague to symbolically create the red line that the government has failed to set.

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

    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.

  • ‘A Dire Situation’: Flooding Intensifies Gaza Crisis as Israel’s US-Backed Assault Rages

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

    Displaced Palestinian children are pictured at a flooded makeshift camp in Nuseirat, Gaza on November 26, 2024.
     (Photo: Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “For many children, all they have is ruined bits of tent material swimming in swamp water in the camp they fled to for safety.”

    Flooding induced by heavy rainstorms in recent days has compounded the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, intensifying the already-high threat of disease as nearly two million displaced people struggle to survive Israel’s U.S.-backed assault.

    Save the Children, a humanitarian group working on the ground in Gaza, said Friday that torrential rainfall has transformed makeshift camps into swamps, impacting roughly 235,000 children who have been forced from their homes by Israeli attacks and displacement orders.

    A Save the Children nutrition consultant who works in Gaza’s flood-affected camps said that most of the tents “are uninhabitable” and wholly inadequate to withstand harsh winter weather. Makeshift tents that now run for miles along Gaza’s coast have been badly damaged or completely destroyed in recent days by rising seawater.

    “The tents are made of cloth and similar materials, and the ground is dust and mud, so tents get flooded within five minutes of rain,” said the Save the Children consultant, identified as Mariam. “People’s situation is miserable. A dire situation in terms of health, mental health, and immunity.”

    “A mother came in today and apologized for being late. Why? Because it was raining through the night and their tent was flooded,” said Mariam. “The family had to go outside, and she had to carry the children until the rain stopped. Then they swept the water out and went back inside. Some people had to flee because big ponds were formed due to rain. It’s a tragic situation.”

    (Photo: Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Reuters reported earlier this week that downpours “inundated tents and in some places washed away the plastic and cloth shelters used by displaced Gazans.” The United Nations estimates that around 1.6 million people live in makeshift shelters across Gaza.

    “Some placed water buckets on the ground to protect mats from leaks and dug trenches to drain water away from their tents,” according to Reuters. “Many tents used early in the war have now worn out and no longer offer protection, but the price of new tents and plastic sheeting has shot up beyond the means of displaced families.”

    Aid workers have warned for months of the threat stagnant water poses to public health in Gaza, whose sanitation infrastructure has been decimated by Israel’s large-scale bombing campaign. One Oxfam campaigner recently described the bomb-ravaged enclave as “a nightmarish landscape of insect and disease-ridden swamps and poisoned wells.”

    In a report issued in September, the U.N. Children’s Fund and other organizations noted that “flooding creates stagnant water pools which can become breeding sites for mosquitoes, increasing the risk of diseases such as West Nile Fever.”

    Jeremy Stoner, regional director for Save the Children, said Friday that “children in Gaza are not only losing their lives, their limbs, and their loved ones—they are also fleeing their bombed-out homes for camps with conditions less and less fit for human life, as we see more and more restrictions on aid.”

    “As this deadly war has shattered the lives and futures of children for over a year now, we have seen access to critical things like food, healthcare, and sanitation stripped away,” Stoner added. “Now for many children, all they have is ruined bits of tent material swimming in swamp water in the camp they fled to for safety.”

    Gaza’s health ministry said Friday that the official death toll in the enclave has risen to 44,363 following a series of Israeli attacks across the territory over the past 24 hours.

    Since Thursday morning, as Al Jazeera reported Friday, Israeli attacks in central Gaza have killed dozens of people.

    “Israeli fighter jets have carried out an intense bombing campaign in the Nuseirat area over the past day, targeting residential buildings and homes, as well as mosques and other public facilities,” the outlet observed. “One Israeli attack on Thursday struck a home sheltering displaced Palestinians, resulting in nine members from one family being killed. Israeli fighter jets also bombed a house in the camp belonging to the Dahdouh family on Friday, killing at least five people.”

    Al Jazeera‘s Hani Mahmoud said Friday that as Israeli tanks and armored vehicles withdrew from areas of central Gaza that they attacked in the preceding 24 hours, “many displaced people made their way back to Nuseirat refugee camp to check on family members still inside.”

    “Many were shocked to find out that their family members were not able to leave due to quadcopters constantly shooting at them,” Mahmoud said. “Many people have been killed either inside their homes or as they were making their way out of their residential buildings into the streets, they said. They are literally collecting bodies right now from the streets.”

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

  • 130,000 kids in Gaza ‘cut off’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/130000-kids-in-gaza-cut-off

    Palestinian children queue for donated food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, November 22, 2024

    Fifty days of siege in northern Gaza sees young children deprived of food and medicine

    AN ESTIMATED 130,000 children under 10 have been trapped for 50 days without access to food or medical aid in northern Gaza, a charity warned today.

    According to Save the Children, the area is almost entirely inaccessible to aid workers, cutting Palestinians off from supplies despite warnings of famine.

    Those in northern Gaza have been cut off from food, water and medical aid since October 6, when Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) declared the area a closed military zone.

    Israel ignored pleas from the UN to halt its “blatant disregard for basic humanity” later that month.

    The UN warned that the whole of North Gaza governorate was at risk of dying, but the IDF has repeatedly denied or impeded attempts by aid groups to access the area.

    …

    article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/130000-kids-in-gaza-cut-off

  • Continuing ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Campaign, Israel Blows Past US Deadline for Gaza Aid

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

    One advocate urged action “to prevent further loss of innocent life, the deepening of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis, and the continued erosion of U.S. credibility as an upholder of international humanitarian law.”

    As the deadline set by the Biden administration last month for Israel to step up aid deliveries to Gaza passed on Tuesday, human rights groups demanded that the U.S. stick to its commitment to holding the Israeli government accountable for what one advocate called “a campaign of ethnic cleansing.”

    But the White House’s refusal over the last 13 months to follow U.S. and international law provoked doubt that it would do so.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on October 13, giving Israel 30 days to allow at least 350 humanitarian aid trucks per day into Gaza, open a fifth crossing into the enclave, and ensure access to northern Gaza for aid groups, among other specific steps outlined in the letter.

    Noncompliance would violate National Security Memorandum 20, which President Joe Biden issued in February to demand credible assurances from Israel that it was acting according to international law, and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the U.S. from providing military aid to countries that are blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.

    Advocates have said for months that Israel and the U.S. have been violating both statutes, as mounting evidence has shown U.S. weapons have been used in Israeli attacks on civilians and United Nations experts have warned Gaza has descended into famine.

    Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Tuesday that the Biden administration’s warning 30 days ago did not improve conditions in Gaza, with aid entering the enclave “at its lowest level in months.”

    “Thousands and thousands of people have been killed senselessly. They have been killed because there is lack of aid, because the bombs have continued, and because we have not been able to even reach them under the rubble,” Wateridge said at a press briefing in Geneva. “The average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… That is for 2.2 million people… Children are dying. People are dying every day.”

    With the number of daily deliveries since October 13 far below the level stipulated by the Biden administration, Wateridge emphasized that “anything that happens now is already too late.”

    As the deadline passed, Israel appeared eager to put new humanitarian aid efforts on display, with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) posting on social media an image of a convoy delivering what it said were “hundreds of food and water packages to the Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun areas in 6n Gaza.”

    The military also arranged a photo call on Monday where journalists “were invited to film around eight aid truc ks passing into Gaza,” reported Jon Donnison at the BBC. “They were laden with sacks of flour, rice, and toilet paper, among other things.”

    “So, aid is getting into Gaza,” wrote Donnison. “But nowhere near enough.”

    Before Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October 2023, about 500 aid trucks entered the enclave each day.

    A spokesperson for COGAT told the BBC Tuesday that “most aspects [of Blinken’s demands] have been met and those which have not are being discussed.”

    https://twitter.com/comrade_sweezy/status/1856249133385879648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1856249133385879648%7Ctwgr%5Ed80e230c97c6ebc1ead0d60158b1e3cfe99ae4bd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisrael-aid-deadline

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    U.N. officials said this week that aid workers have been unable to deliver relief even after the Israel Defense Forces gave approval for deliveries in northern Gaza, which has been cut of from virtually all aid for more than a month. Israeli troops on the ground have restricted aid despite the IDF’s approval.

    In southern Gaza, hundreds of trucks containing aid have been sitting on the enclave’s side of the border with Egypt because U.N. workers cannot reach them due to “lawlessness, theft, and Israeli military restrictions,” according to The Associated Press.

    As the deadline passed Tuesday, a coalition of human rights groups including Oxfam, Refugees International, and Save the Children released a scorecard assessing Israel’s progress in complying with the conditions set by Blinken and Austin on October 13.

    They found “outright failure” by Israel to meet 15 out of 19 measures of compliance, and said the IDF has only partially complied with the remaining four.

    Israel has failed to allow 350 aid trucks into Gaza over the last month, said the groups, and has not ended the isolation of northern Gaza or allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to Palestinians detained by Israel, among other requirements set last month.

    “The U.S. government once again laid out basic measures for how the government of Israel must follow international law and allow for aid delivery in Gaza,” said Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman. “Since then, we have seen Israeli forces accelerate their efforts to bombard, depopulate, deprive, and erase the Palestinian population of the North Gaza governorate. We are witnessing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.”

    “Oxfam and partner organizations are unable to provide any support to the remaining civilians in the North Gaza governorate, where people are dying every day,” added Maxman. “jAccess to the rest of Gaza is also severely restricted, with civilians facing starvation and relentless violence. The U.S. must finally make this overdue call to suspend deadly arms sales to Israel or be complicit in the horrific atrocities unfolding before our eyes.”

    Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of CARE, said that with the letter sent to Netanyahu’s government last month, the U.S. “created a critical opportunity to respond to the facts on the ground, and to insist upon accountability to our own laws.”

    “It is imperative to act now to prevent further loss of innocent life, the deepening of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis, and the continued erosion of U.S. credibility as an upholder of international humanitarian law,” said Nunn.

    The analysis, added Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, “demonstrates that the Israeli government is violating its obligations under U.S. and international law to facilitate humanitarian relief for suffering Palestinians in Gaza.”

    “With experts again projecting imminent famine in north Gaza, there is no time to lose,” he added. “The United States must impose immediate restrictions on security cooperation with Israel as required under Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

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