Israel’s leader claims no one in Gaza is starving. Data and witnesses disagree

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says no one in Gaza is starving: “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans.”

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagreed with Netanyahu’s claim of no starvation, noting the images emerging of emaciated people: “Those children look very hungry.”

When aid arrives, trucks are quickly overrun by desperate people, the UN says.Credit: Bloomberg

After international pressure, Israel at the weekend announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures meant to allow more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The UN has described it as a one-week scale-up of aid, and Israel has not said how long the latest measures will last.

“This aid, delivered in this way, is an insult to the Palestinian people,” said Hasan Al-Zalaan, who was at the site of an airdrop as some fought over the supplies, and crushed cans of chickpeas littered the ground.

Israel asserts that Hamas is the reason aid isn’t reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its militants of siphoning off aid to support its rule in the territory. The UN denies that the looting of aid is systematic and that it lessens or ends entirely when enough aid is allowed to enter Gaza.

Here’s what we know.

Deaths are increasing

The World Health Organisation said on Sunday there had been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of five – up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year.

Gaza’s Health Ministry puts the number even higher, reporting 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes: 24 children and 58 adults.

On Monday, it said that 14 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is headed by medical professionals and is seen by the UN as the most reliable source of data on casualties.

Malnourished Yazan Abu Ful, 2, sits at his family home in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.Credit: AP

UN agencies also often confirm numbers through other partners on the ground.

The Patient’s Friends Hospital, the main emergency centre for malnourished children in northern Gaza, says this month it saw, for the first time, malnutrition deaths in children who had no pre-existing conditions.

Some adults who died suffered from such illnesses as diabetes or had heart or kidney ailments made worse by starvation, Gaza medical officials said.

The WHO also says that acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month, reaching nearly one in five children under the age of five, and has doubled in central and southern Gaza. The UN says Gaza’s only four specialised treatment centres for malnutrition are “overwhelmed”.

The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned of famine for months in Gaza but has not formally declared one, citing the lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory.

Aid trucks are overrun

The measures announced by Israel late on Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three heavily populated areas so that UN trucks can more easily distribute food.

Still, UN World Food Program spokesperson Martin Penner said the agency’s 55 trucks of aid that entered Gaza on Monday via the Zikim and Kerem Shalom crossings were looted by starving people before they reached WFP warehouses.

Palestinians inspect a site struck by an Israeli bombardment in Muwasi.Credit: AP

Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground. Israel’s military says 48 food packages were dropped on Sunday and Monday.

Palestinians say they want a full return to the UN-led aid distribution system that was in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May.

Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds of people by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach those food distribution hubs or while they crowded around arriving aid trucks. Israel’s military says it has fired warning shots to disperse threats.

The UN and partners say the best way to bring food into Gaza is by truck, and they have called repeatedly for Israel to loosen restrictions on their entry. A truck carries about 19 tons of supplies.

Israel’s military says that as of July 21, some 95,435 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the war began. That’s an average of 146 a day, and far below the 500 to 600 the UN says are needed.

The rate has sometimes been as low as half of that for several months at a time. Nothing went in for 2½ months starting in March because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza.

Distribution is difficult and slow

The UN says that delivering aid that is permitted into Gaza has become increasingly difficult.

When aid enters, it is left just inside the border in Gaza, and the UN must get Israeli military permission to send trucks to pick it up. But the UN says the military has denied or impeded just over half of the movement requests for its trucks in the past three months.

If the UN succeeds in picking up the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs swarm the convoys and strip them of supplies. The Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that stopped after Israel targeted them with airstrikes.

AP

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