Red Cross ‘deeply alarmed by intensifying hostilities in Gaza’
The Red Cross said it was deeply worried as Israel’s army expanded its operations in Gaza, warning that the Palestinian territory’s few remaining functional medical facilities were already overwhelmed.
“The International Committee of the Red Cross is deeply alarmed by the intensifying hostilities in Gaza City and Jabaliya, which have reportedly caused dozens of deaths and injuries among civilians over the past 36 hours,” the ICRC said in a statement.
“The intensification of hostilities comes as Gaza’s already-decimated healthcare system struggles to absorb a relentless surge in critical cases.
“Nearly all public hospitals in Gaza are shut down or gutted by months of hostilities and restrictions on the entry of critical medicine, supplies and equipment.”
More than 165 aid groups call for end to US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
More than 165 major international charities and nongovernmental organisations have called for an immediate end to the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the secretive entity set up by the US and Israel to push aside the UN and established international aid groups.
”The number of aid distribution points has dropped from 400 to just four military-controlled sites,” the group said in a statement. The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has forced “two million people into overcrowded militarised zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties while trying to access food”, it added.
The NGOs alleged the GHF was designed to “sustain a cycle of desperation, danger, and death”.
“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families. The weeks following the launch of the Israeli distribution scheme have been some of the deadliest and most violent since October 2023,” the group said in a joint news release, adding that GHF brings “nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza”.
The UN and other aid groups have repeatedly emphasised that they are capable of delivering sustainable aid to the people of Gaza, if Israel lifts its blockade that has brought more than two million Palestinians to the brink of famine.
Since May 27, about 600 Palestinians have been killed and 4,200 wounded while waiting for food at aid distribution sites operated by GHF.
The GHF responded in a statement, saying established aid groups should stop “bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines” and join the group headed by an evangelical leader, Johnnie Moore Jr, who is a close ally of Donald Trump.
