At least 14 Palestinians, including two children, died of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza, according to health authorities, like the President of the United States, Donald Trump, says that there are signs of “real famine” in the besieged territory.
Deaths pushed the number of those who died in malnutrition since Israel launched his war against Gaza in October 2023, at 147, including 88 children, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday.
Most of the deaths have taken place in recent weeks when a hunger crisis has seized the territory due to serious restrictions from Israel at the entrance to humanitarian aid.
Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory in March, which was partially lifted in May. But only an aid net has been authorized to enter since then, despite the warnings of the United Nations and mass aid organizations.
‘Body of walking’
The head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Monday that his Gaza -based staff had described that people suffered the famine crisis like “neither death nor living – corpses on foot”.
Speaking at a United Nations Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Philippe Lazzarini said that the words “indignation and condemnation are no longer adequate for what is happening”.
“There must be an immediate action to impose a long-term ceasefire, to reverse the deepening of the famine and to release each hostage … Once a cease-fire is in place, a large scale of humanitarian assistance can be activated by the major workforce of UNRWA,” said Lazzarini.
Earlier Monday, US President Trump said many people were in the Gaza and that Israel “had a lot of responsibility” for the situation in the territory.
Describing famine as “real”, Trump’s comments disagreed him with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Sunday that “there is no famine in Gaza”, and promised to fight against the Palestinian group Hamas, which governs Gaza.
However, in an article on X on Monday, Netanyahu described the situation in Gaza as “difficult”, saying that Israel is working to ensure deliveries of aid to the besieged band.
“Israel will continue to work with international agencies as well as American and European nations to ensure that large amounts of humanitarian aid are traveling in the Gaza Strip,” said Netanyahu.
Trump, speaking during a visit to Scotland, said that many people could be saved. “You have a lot of hungry people,” he said.
“We are going to set up food centers,” without fences or limits to facilitate access, said Trump, adding that the United States would work with other countries to provide more humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of Gaza, including food and sanitation.
The comments arise after the Israeli army said it would arouse attacks in certain parts of Gaza and authorized the new corridors for humanitarian deliveries in order to increase the flow of seriously necessary aid.
The decision was welcomed by the UN, but the humanitarian chief of the organization said that deliveries should be extended.
Deir el-Balah’s reports, Tareq Abu Azzoum of Tel Aviv Tribune, said: “What Israel describes as” humanitarian breaks “are, in fact, limited and considered as unilateral suspensions of military activities which generally last a few hours and are confined to selected fields,” said Abu Azzoum.
“These breaks, as we have seen, lack international surveillance or any kind of coordination with humanitarian agencies,” he said.
Baby formula shortage
The disastrous conditions in Gaza have fueled an increasing international criticism of Israel’s conduct in its war, while international aid groups warn that the 2.3 million residents of the territory are faced with mass famine.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Monday that 14 people died from famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours. A medical source from the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City told Tel Aviv Tribune that an infant named Muhammad Ibrahim Adas died of malnutrition due to a shortage of baby formulas.
The Gaza Government Media Bureau said that an extreme baby formula shortage could slowly kill tens of thousands of malnutrition infants like Muhammad.
“There are more than 40,000 infants under a year in Gaza currently at risk of slow death due to this brutal and suffocating blockade,” the office said on Monday, accusing Israel of blocking the entrance to the product for 150 days.
“We urgently demand the immediate and unconditional opening of all crossings and the rapid entry of the baby formula and humanitarian aid,” he continued.
While more and more caregiver trucks entered Gaza on Monday via Karem Abu Salem Crossing (Kerem Shalom in Hebrew) and the Zikim road in the North, “the devastated Palestinians jumped on these trucks and took everything they had,” said the posterior Khoudary of Tel Aviv Tribune, postponing Deir El-Balah to Central Gaza.
“When they were asked why they had jumped on the trucks, the Palestinians said that they did not have time to wait for food. They said that their children have been hungry for days, and they have no other option than jumping on these trucks,” Khoudary said.
“This shows how desperate Palestinians are and how they were deprived of their basic necessities. Now we expect more trucks to enter today. ”
‘A drop in the ocean’
Israel’s decision to authorize more aid to Gaza was welcomed by the UN, but those responsible have warned that serious restrictions have continued to block rescue deliveries.
“This is a welcome step in the right direction,” the United Nations Underies for Humanitarian Affairs in Tel Aviv Tribune Tom Fletcher told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“But clearly, we need to get large amounts of help on a much larger scale than we have done so far.”
Fletcher said that the whole deliveries had not been “a drop in the ocean” of what is necessary.
“We cannot just present ourselves and cross. This is what we should be allowed to do is what international law requires, but we are not yet at that time,” he said, citing continuous security risks, closed passages, visa refusals and customs delays.
While the hunger crisis is deepened, Israeli forces continued to launch attacks across Gaza, killing at least 88 Palestinians on Monday, 40 of which were looking for aid, medical sources told Tel Aviv Tribune.
More than 1,000 Palestinians in search of aid were killed by Israeli forces near distribution sites led by Gaza Humaninian Foundation (GHF) supported by the United States and Israeli (GHF), which launched operations at the end of May.
The GHF has been strongly criticized by the UN and other humanitarian organizations for not having provided enough aid and for the disastrous security situation in and around its aid distribution sites.