DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 100 charity and human rights groups said Wednesday that Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation, as Israeli strikes killed another 21 people overnight, according to local health officials.
The Trump administration’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff was meanwhile set to meet with a senior Israeli official about ceasefire talks, a sign that lower-level negotiations that have dragged on for weeks could be approaching a breakthrough.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday.
Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is facing famine because of Israel’s blockade and nearly two-year offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries.
Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid—without providing evidence of widespread diversion—and blames U.N. agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in. The military says it has only fired warning shots near aid sites. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, rejected what it said were “false and exaggerated statistics” from the United Nations.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 101 people, including 80 children, have died in recent days from starvation.
The deaths could not be independently verified, but U.N. officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight.
Israel eased a 2½-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding U.N.-run system and the newly created GHF. Aid groups say it’s not nearly enough.
‘Chaos, Starvation and Death’
In an open letter, 115 organizations, including major international aid groups like Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, “waste away.”
It blamed Israeli restrictions and “massacres” at aid distribution points. Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on crowds seeking aid, killing more than 1,000 people. Israel says its forces have only fired warning shots and that the death toll is exaggerated.
“The government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” the letter said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism and accused the groups of “echoing Hamas’ propaganda.” It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks to enter Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the United Nations.
That’s an average of around 70 trucks a day, the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500-600 trucks a day the U.N. says are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.
The U.N. says it has struggled to deliver aid inside Gaza because of Israeli military restrictions, ongoing fighting, and a breakdown of law and order. An alternative system established by Israel and an American contractor has been marred by violence and controversy.
‘I Do It for My Children’
Dozens of Palestinians lined up Tuesday outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City, hoping for a bowl of watery tomato soup. The lucky ones got small chunks of eggplant. As supplies ran out, people holding pots pushed and shoved to get to the front.
Nadia Mdoukh, a pregnant woman who was displaced from her home and lives in a tent with her husband and three children, said she worries about being shoved or trampled on, and about heat stroke as daytime temperatures hover above 90 F (32 C).
“I do it for my children,” she said. “This is famine—there is no bread or flour.”
The U.N. World Food Program says Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation.” Ross Smith, the agency’s director for emergencies, told reporters Monday that nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza’s population is going without food for multiple days in a row.
MedGlobal, a charity working in Gaza, said five children as young as 3 months had died from starvation in the past three days.
“This is a deliberate and human-made disaster,” said Joseph Belliveau, its executive director. “Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them.”
The charity said food is in such short supply that its own staff members suffer dizziness and headaches.
Aid Delivery Model Criticized
Of the 1,054 people killed while trying to get food since late May, 766 were killed while heading to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. human rights office. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around U.N. convoys or aid sites.
Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the U.N. rights office, says its figures come from “multiple reliable sources on the ground,” including medics, humanitarian and human rights organizations. He said the numbers were still being verified according to the office’s strict methodology.
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces regularly fire toward crowds of thousands of people heading to the GHF sites. The military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its armed contractors have only fired into the air on a few occasions to try to prevent stampedes.
A joint statement from 28 Western-aligned countries on Monday condemned the “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.”
“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” read the statement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, France and other countries friendly to Israel. “The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.”
Israel and the United States rejected the statement, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting Israeli terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages abducted in the militant-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the fighting.
Hamas has said it will release the remaining hostages only in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will keep fighting until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed.
Strikes on Tents Sheltering the Displaced
Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people Tuesday across Gaza, according to local health officials.
One strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in the built-up seaside Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said that it wasn’t aware of such a strike by its forces.
The dead included three women and three children, the hospital director, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, told The Associated Press. Thirty-eight other Palestinians were wounded, he said.
An overnight strike that hit crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City killed eight, hospitals said. At least 118 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
“A bag of flour covered in blood and death,” said Mohammed Issam, who was in the crowd and said some people were run over by trucks in the chaos. “How long will this humiliation continue?”
Israel has continued to carry out waves of daily airstrikes against what it says are militant targets but which often kill women and children. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
Strikes overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 21 people, more than half of them women and children, according to local health officials.
One of the strikes hit a house in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead included six children and two women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck an Islamic Jihad militant, and that the incident was under review because of reports of civilian casualties.
Israel renewed its offensive in March with a surprise bombardment after ending an earlier ceasefire. Talks on another truce have dragged on for weeks despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack, and killed around 1,200 people. Fewer than half of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive.
d The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
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Magdy reported from Cairo, and Goldenberg from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
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