Gaza is being ‘deliberately asphyxiated by Israeli forces’
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, says Israel is allowing an insufficient amount of aid into Gaza as “a smokescreen to pretend” that its siege is over, while subjecting hospitals and clinics in the enclave to “intensive attacks”, and forcing them out of service.
“The Israeli authorities’ decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving,” said Pascale Coissard, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Khan Younis.
“This plan is a way to instrumentalise aid, making it a tool to further Israeli forces’ military objectives,” he said.
MSF said that at least 20 medical facilities in Gaza have been “damaged, or forced partially or completely out of service in the past week by advancing Israeli ground operations, intensified airstrikes, and widespread evacuation orders”.
It said its teams in Khan Younis reported hearing almost one Israeli strike per minute between 6am and 6.30am on May 19, including one that hit the Nasser Hospital. The strike was the third time that the hospital had been struck in two months, and it damaged medical stocks, it added.
Earlier, an MSF staff member in central Deir el-Balah told Al Jazeera that the group has yet to see any aid distributed from the first batch of nine trucks Israel cleared for entry on Monday.
Claire Manera also said she is seeing “women and children who look like they haven’t eaten for weeks”, and that malnourished people are flooding into clinics for help.
Ms Rachel implores world leaders to save babies in Gaza
Children’s educator and YouTube star Ms Rachel has issued an emotional plea to world leaders, urging them to act on the UN’s warning that thousands of babies could die in Gaza within the next 48 hours if Israel’s blockade continues.
“You can’t be about to let 14,000 children starve,” she said in a post on Instagram.
“Whatever is keeping you from standing up for these kids, who don’t have food and medical care and who have had amputations without anaesthesia, whatever is keeping you from saying it, it’s not greater than your humanity,” she said.
Ms Rachel, whose educational videos have had more than 10 billion views on YouTube, has continued to be outspoken on children in Gaza, despite facing backlash for her views.
Her real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso.
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