\n<\/p>\n
Israel is \u201cengineering chaos and massacres\u201d in the Gaza Strip by continuing to block aid deliveries and opening fire on starving Palestinians seeking desperately needed food supplies, a humanitarian official has warned.<\/p>\n
Caroline Willemen, Gaza project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera on Friday that food remains \u201ccritically scarce\u201d in the besieged enclave despite the increased entry of aid in recent days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is little indication that sufficient aid will arrive consistently,\u201d Willemen said. \u201cAs a result, every day, people risk their lives in a desperate search for food.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Friday that three more people, including two children, died of hunger and malnutrition in the previous 24 hours.<\/p>\n
That pushed the total number of starvation-related deaths to 162, including 92 children, since Israel\u2019s war on Gaza began in October 2023.<\/p>\n
More than 80 Palestinians were also killed in Israeli strikes across the Strip on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Of those, 49 people were killed and more than 270 others were wounded while seeking aid, the sources said.<\/p>\n
Palestinians mourn outside the al-Shifa Hospital morgue in Gaza City on July 31, 2025 [Bashar Taleb\/AFP]<\/p>\n
Condemnation of Israel\u2019s starvation policy in Gaza has grown this week, with a global hunger monitoring system warning on Tuesday that the \u201cworst-case scenario of famine\u201d was unfolding.<\/p>\n
While Israel has authorised a series of aid airdrops in recent days, top United Nations officials have denounced the scheme as expensive and dangerous while urging Israel to allow unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is political will to allow airdrops \u2013 which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,\u201d Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the people of #Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olga Cherevko, an official with the UN\u2019s humanitarian office (OCHA), also told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza that while there has been a slight increase in aid being allowed in, it is still grossly insufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe slight increase in what is coming in is not nearly enough to even scratch the surface,\u201d she said. \u201cThe needs on the ground are overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza continue to risk their lives by seeking aid at notorious sites run by the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF.<\/p>\n
Ibrahim Mekki, a Palestinian man from Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said he waited at least six hours and risked being shot by Israeli forces just to end up with a few bags of pasta.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a trap, a game,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. \u201cLetting you move a little, then opening fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s human rights office reported that at least 1,373 aid seekers have been killed in Gaza since May, when the GHF began operating in the enclave.<\/p>\n
Of those, 859 people were killed near GHF-run aid sites and 514 were killed while waiting along food convoy routes, the office said. \u201cMost of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
MSF\u2019s Willemen also recounted a harrowing incident from earlier this week, when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians attempting to reach aid trucks near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were wounded in the gunfire and in the crush as crowds panicked and ran,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese deadly incidents have become a daily reality in Gaza for too long now. The current methods of distribution are engineering chaos and massacres.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Israel and its top ally, the US, have continued to support GHF despite the killings and growing global criticism of the group\u2019s operations in Gaza.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, also visited the enclave on Friday alongside US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to \u201cassess conditions\u201d and engage with GHF.<\/p>\n
Witkoff said the trip aimed to help \u201ccraft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration announced last month that it approved $30m to support GHF\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
The US provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel annually, as well as diplomatic backing at the UN \u2013 assistance that has increased significantly since the start of the war on Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel is \u201cengineering chaos and massacres\u201d in the Gaza Strip by continuing to block aid deliveries and opening fire on starving Palestinians seeking desperately needed food supplies, a humanitarian official has warned. Caroline Willemen, Gaza project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told Al Jazeera on Friday that food remains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[267,376,7228,1233,214,7229,150,2786,7230],"class_list":{"0":"post-13558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-death","10":"tag-engineering","11":"tag-gaza","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-massacres","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-palestinians","16":"tag-starve"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}