Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza

Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza
Israel has failed to meet critical Gaza-related humanitarian demands set by the US government, according to a report published jointly by eight major humanitarian organizations. (Reuters/File)
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Updated 13 November 2024

Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza

Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza
  • Aid organizations call on Washington to suspend arms sales to Israel and impose security restrictions, as required by US law
  • Oxfam America accuses Israeli authorities of a ‘campaign of ethnic cleansing’ in northern Gaza

NEW YORK CITY: Israel has failed to meet critical Gaza-related humanitarian demands set by the US government, according to a report published jointly by eight major humanitarian organizations.
The failure comes “at an enormous human cost for Palestinian civilians” in the enclave, where the humanitarian situation “is now at its worst point” since the war began in October 2023, they said.
Their assessment comes a month after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to Israeli officials demanding the implementation of concrete measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days.
This deadline passed on Tuesday with no significant signs of progress. Instead, Israeli forces have accelerated their efforts “to bombard, depopulate, deprive and erase the Palestinian population of the North Gaza governorate,” said Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America.
“We are witnessing a campaign of ethnic cleansing,” she added. “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.
“Access to the rest of Gaza is also severely restricted, with civilians facing starvation and relentless violence. The US must finally make this overdue call to suspend deadly arms sales to Israel or be complicit in the horrific atrocities unfolding before our eyes.”
The aid organizations that contributed to the report, which also include Refugees International, Save the Children and MedGlobal, called on Washington to make an “immediate determination” that Israel is in violation of its assurances under US and international law, and to suspend arms sales and impose restrictions on security cooperation, as required by US law.
The report also urges the American government to press for immediate humanitarian pauses in military operations, the opening of more routes for deliveries of aid, and efforts to ensure civilians and medical facilities are protected.
“With experts again projecting imminent famine in northern Gaza, there is no time to lose,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. The report “clearly demonstrates that the Israeli government is violating its obligations (to) facilitate humanitarian relief for suffering Palestinians in Gaza,” he added.
Zaher Sahloul, the president and co-founder of MedGlobal, said the organization’s local medical teams and international volunteers in Gaza have personally witnessed “the complete failure by the Israeli authorities to ensure the delivery of critical supplies, including food, water and medicines, and to protect civilians and medical spaces.”
He added: “Our teams are living through the relentless bombing of hospitals, and our medics continue to treat wounded women and children every day. These are egregious violations of the cornerstone principle of international humanitarian law, which protects civilians in time of war.”
Sahloul called on the Biden administration to “do everything possible to push for the full provision of aid to Gaza’s desperate people.”
In addition to the medical crisis, the blockade of Gaza has severely limited the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver aid. The report says convoys are still often blocked, delayed or looted, and access to key parts of the territory, especially in the north, remains severely restricted.
“I witnessed during my visit to Gaza last week the deliberate starvation of almost 2 million civilians, while the bombardment continues,” said Jan Egelan, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“There is barely any aid crossing into Gaza. The little that does get through is often looted, as the occupying power has obliterated the Palestinian police and refuses to secure, or provide secure access routes to, places where humanitarian organizations could distribute aid to a starving population.”
Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps, said the US government must do “everything in its power to ensure the unfettered provision of essential aid to people in desperate need.”
The report highlights the dire food insecurity among the population of Gaza. Janti Soeripto, the president of Save the Children, said: “Systemic impediments to the humanitarian system are making a deadly conflict even deadlier.
“Enough is enough. The facts are there. Adults have been failing children for over a year. What more will it take?”
With winter and famine looming, the organizations warned that children in particular are at imminent risk, with many of them already suffering the effects of malnutrition.
Sean Carroll, the president and CEO of American Near East Refugee Aid, said the organization’s “humanitarian workers in Gaza have spent the past year expending superhuman effort in subhuman conditions to provide assistance to civilians.”
He added: “In the past month, we’ve seen families throughout Gaza, and particularly in the north, subjected to increasingly horrific conditions. This is a damning indictment of Israel’s failure to follow international humanitarian law and to respond to the critical and reasonable demands of its greatest ally, the United States. The consequences will be more innocent lives ended and destroyed.
“They should also include restrictions on Israel’s ability to continue prosecution of this war in a manner that is increasingly being seen as consistent with ethnic cleansing.”
The report warns that with more than 2 million civilians in Gaza facing starvation, daily bombardments and lack of access to the basic necessities of life, the humanitarian situation in the territory is on the brink of catastrophe.
“There is no time to lose,” it concludes.


Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council

Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council
Updated 17 July 2025

Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council

Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council
  • More than 5,800 children diagnosed with acute malnutrition last month, triple the number compared with February
  • UNICEF chief Catherine Russell says children are being killed and maimed as they queue for food and medicine

NEW YORK: Children in Gaza are suffering from the worst starvation rates since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023, aid officials told the UN Security Council on Wednesday, in a devastating assessment of the conditions young Palestinians in the territory face as they try to survive.

“Starvation rates among children hit their highest levels in June, with over 5,800 girls and boys diagnosed as acutely malnourished,” said the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher.

Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid earlier this year, and has only allowed a trickle of relief supplies to enter the territory since the end of May. The effects on the health of children have been catastrophic, according to the details presented to members of the Security Council. Levels of acute malnutrition have nearly tripled since February, just before the total blockade on aid was imposed.

“Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition,” UNICEF’s executive director, Catherine Russell, told the council.

“These severely malnourished children need consistent, supervised treatment, along with safe water and medical care, to survive.”

Yet youngsters in the territory are being killed and maimed as they queue for lifesaving food and medicine, she added. Last week, nine children were among 15 Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah while they waited in line for nutritional supplies from UNICEF.

“Among the survivors was Donia, a mother seeking a lifeline for her family after months of desperation and hunger,” Russell said.

“Donia’s 1-year-old son, Mohammed, was killed in the attack after speaking his first words just hours earlier. When we spoke with Donia, she was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, clutching Mohammed’s tiny shoe.”

Russell painted a bleak picture of desperation for the 1 million Palestinian children in the territory, where more than 58,000 people have been killed during the 21 months of war.

Among the dead are 17,000 children — an average of 28 each day, the equivalent of “a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” Russell said.

Youngsters also struggle to find clean water supplies, she added, and are therefore forced to drink contaminated water, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks; waterborne diseases now represent 44 per cent of all healthcare consultations.

“Thousands of children urgently need emergency medical support,” Russell said, and many of those suffering from traumatic injuries or severe preexisting medical conditions are at risk of death because medical care is unavailable.

She repeated calls from other UN officials for Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza “at sufficient speed and scale to meet the urgent needs of children and families.”

A new aid-distribution system, introduced and run by Israel and the US, has sidelined traditional UN delivery mechanisms and restricted the flow of humanitarian supplies to a fraction of what was previously available.

Since the new system, run by the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, hundreds of people, including children, have been shot dead as they gathered to collect aid.

Russell urged the Security Council to push for a return to UN aid-delivery systems so that essentials such as medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need.

Fletcher, the humanitarian chief, told the council that the shattered healthcare system in Gaza meant that in some hospitals, five babies share a single incubator and pregnant women give birth without any medical care.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher speaks to delegates about the situation in Gaza during a United Nations Security Council meeting at UN headquarters in New York City on July 16, 2025. (REUTERS)

He said the International Court of Justice has demanded that Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” and added: “Intentionally using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare would, of course, be a war crime.”

During the meeting, Israel faced strong criticism from permanent Security Council members France and the UK.

The British ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, described the shooting of Palestinians as they attempted to reach food-distribution sites as “abhorrent.”

She called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and said the UK “strongly opposes” the expansion of Israeli military operations.

French envoy Jerome Bonnafont said Israel must end its blockade of humanitarian aid, and denounced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation system as “unacceptable and incompatible” with the requirements of international law.

He said an international conference due to take place on July 28 and 29 at the UN headquarters in New York, co-chaired by France and , would offer a “pathway toward the future” and identify tangible ways in which a two-state solution might be reached to end the wider conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Dorothy Shea, the ambassador to the UN from Israel’s main international ally, the US, said the blame for the situation in Gaza lay with Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken during the attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the conflict in Gaza.
 


Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters

Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters
Updated 16 July 2025

Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters

Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters
  • Amid threat of Iranian missiles, Bedouin families resorted to building shelters out of available material
  • The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves

BEERSHEBA, Israel: When the sirens wail in the southern Israeli desert to herald an incoming missile, Ahmad Abu Ganima’s family scrambles outside. Down some dirt-hewn steps, one by one, they squeeze through the window of a minibus buried under 10 feet of dirt.

Abu Ganima, a mechanic, got the cast-off bus from his employer after it was stripped for parts. He buried it in his yard to create an ad-hoc bomb shelter for his family. Abu Ganima is part of Israel’s 300,000-strong Bedouin community, a previously nomadic tribe that lives scattered across the arid Negev Desert.

More than two thirds of the Bedouin have no access to shelters, says Huda Abu Obaid, executive director of Negev Coexistence Forum, which lobbies for Bedouin issues in southern Israel. As the threat of missiles became more dire during the 12-day war with Iran last month, many Bedouin families resorted to building DIY shelters out of available material: buried steel containers, buried trucks, repurposed construction debris.

“When there’s a missile, you can see it coming from Gaza, Iran or Yemen,” says Amira Abu Queider, 55, a lawyer for the Shariah, or Islamic court system, pointing to the wide-open sky over Al-Zarnug, a village of squat, haphazardly built cement structures. “We’re not guilty, but we’re the ones getting hurt.”

Al-Zarnug is not recognized by the Israeli government and does not receive services such as trash collection, electricity or water. Nearly all power comes from solar panels on rooftops, and the community cannot receive construction permits. Residents receive frequent demolition orders.

Around 90,000 Bedouins live in 35 unrecognized villages in southern Israel. Even those Bedouin who live in areas “recognized” by Israel have scant access to shelter. Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in southern Israel, has eight public shelters for 79,000 residents, while nearby Ofakim, a Jewish town, has 150 public shelters for 41,000 residents, Abu Obaid says.

Sometimes, more than 50 people try to squeeze into the 3 square meters of a mobile bomb shelter or buried truck. Others crowded into cement culverts beneath train tracks, meant to channel storm runoff, hanging sheets to try to provide privacy. Shelters are so far away that sometimes families were forced to leave behind the elderly and people with mobility issues, residents say.

Engineering standards for bomb shelters and protected rooms are exhaustive and specific, laying out thickness of walls and types of shockwave-proof windows that must be used. The Bedouins making their own shelters know that they don’t offer much or any protection from a direct hit, but many people say it makes them feel good to go somewhere. Inside the minibus, Abu Ganeima says, the sound of the sirens are deadened, which is comforting to his children.

“Our bomb shelters are not safe,” says Najah Abo Smhan, a medical translator and single mother from Al-Zarnug. Her 9-year-old daughter, terrified, insisted they run to a neighbor’s, where they had repurposed a massive, cast-off truck scale as the roof of a dug-out underground shelter, even though they knew it wouldn’t be enough to protect them from a direct hit. “We’re just doing a lot of praying.”

When sirens blared to warn of incoming missiles, “scene filled with fear and panic” unfolded, says Miada Abukweder, 36, a leader from the village of Al-Zarnug, which is not recognized by Israel. “Children screamed, and mothers feared more for their children than for themselves. They were thinking about their children while they were screaming, feeling stomach pain, scared, and crying out, ‘We are going to die, where will we go?’” says Abukweder, part of a large clan of families in the area.

The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide, many say, is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves.

Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli security services placed around 300 mobile bomb shelters in Bedouin areas, Abu Obaid says. Civil service organizations also donated a handful of mobile shelters. But these mobile bomb shelters are not built to withstand Iran’s ballistic missiles, and are grossly inadequate to meet widespread need. Abu Obaid estimates thousands of mobile shelters are needed across the far-flung Bedouin communities


UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity

UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity
Updated 16 July 2025

UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity

UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity

BOGOTA: The UN’s unflinching expert on Palestinian affairs Francesca Albanese said Tuesday that Washington’s sanctions following her criticism of the White House’s stance on Gaza are a “violation” of her immunity.

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the comments while visiting Bogota, nearly a week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, calling her work “biased and malicious.”

“It’s a very serious measure. It’s unprecedented. And I take it very seriously,” Albanese told an audience in the Colombian capital.

Albanese was in Bogota to attend an international summit initiated by leftist President Gustavo Petro to find solutions to the Gaza conflict.

The Italian legal scholar and human rights expert has faced harsh criticism for her long-standing accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

“It’s clear violation of the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities that protect UN officials, including independent experts, from words and actions taken in the exercise of their functions,” Albanese said.

Rubio on July 9 announced that Washington was sanctioning Albanese “for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (ICC) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”

The sanctions are “a warning to anyone who dares to defend international law and human rights, justice and freedom,” Albanese said.

On Thursday, the UN urged the US to reverse the sanctions against Albanese, along with sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court, with UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman calling the move “a dangerous precedent.”

On Friday, the European Union also spoke out against the sanctions facing Albanese, adding that it “strongly supports the United Nations human rights system.”

Albanese, who assumed her mandate in 2022, released a damning report this month denouncing companies — many of them American — that she said “profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide” in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The report provoked a furious Israeli response, while some of the companies also raised objections.

Washington last month slapped sanctions on four ICC judges, in part over the court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, barring them from the United States.

UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN human rights council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.


Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties

Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties
Updated 16 July 2025

Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties

Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties
  • They cover key areas including protection of classified information; founding of a joint consular committee; and investments in food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, tourism and hospitality
  • Ministers sign the documents during ceremony at Presidential Palace in Ankara, during state visit by Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan

LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, witnessed on Wednesday the signing of several agreements and memorandums of understanding between their countries.

The aim of the deals, finalized during Sheikh Mohammed’s state visit to Turkiye, is to expand cooperation, and they reflect the shared commitment of both nations to the advancement of ties across various sectors, officials said.

The agreements covered a number of key areas, including: mutual protection of classified information; the establishment of a joint consular committee; investments in food and agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and tourism and hospitality; and cooperation in the industrial sector and polar research.

They were signed during a formal ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Ankara by Emirati and Turkish ministers responsible for the industrial, trade, investment and technology sectors.


US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’

US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’
Updated 16 July 2025

US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’

US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’
  • Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida
  • State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the US was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Washington hoped within hours to ease tensions in Syria, as he voiced concern over violence that has included Israeli strikes on its war-torn neighbor.

“In the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you’ve been seeing over the last couple of hours,” Rubio told reporters in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump nodded.

Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida, which Israel has cited for its latest military intervention.

“It led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side,” Rubio said of the situation which has included Israel bombing the Syrian army’s headquarters in Damascus.

“We’ve been engaged with them all morning long and all night long — with both sides — and we think we’re on our way toward a real deescalation and then hopefully get back on track and helping Syria build the country and arriving at a situation in the Middle East that is far more stable,” said Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the United States was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area.

“We are calling on the Syrian government to, in fact, withdraw their military in order to enable all sides to de-escalate and find a path forward,” she told reporters, without specifying the exact area.

She declined comment on whether the United States wanted Israel to stop its strikes.

Rubio, asked by a reporter earlier in the day at the State Department what he thought of Israel’s bombing, said, “We’re very concerned about it. We want it to stop.”

“We are very worried about the violence in southern Syria. It is a direct threat to efforts to help build a peaceful and stable Syria,” Rubio said in a statement.

“We have been and remain in repeated and constant talks with the governments of Syria and Israel on this matter.”

Trump has been prioritizing diplomacy with Syria’s new leadership.