Two indicators that Gaza is now in famine, UNICEF official says
UNICEF’s deputy executive director says the situation in Gaza has crossed the threshold of famine, after he returned from a trip to the Strip earlier this week.
“We now have two indicators that have exceeded the famine threshold,” Ted Chaiban told a media conference on Friday.
“One in three people in Gaza are going days without food. And the malnutrition indicator has exceeded the famine threshold, with acute malnutrition now at over 16.5 percent.”
He said that than 320,000 young children are currently at risk of acute malnutrition in Gaza, and that Israel is still not allowing aid in quickly enough or in sufficient quantities to alleviate the crisis.
He said that UNICEF has 1,500 trucks of aid standing by in Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Turkiye, and that while 33 UNICEF trucks have entered Gaza in the last couple of days, “this is still a fraction” of what is needed.
“We need to flood the Strip [with aid] from all channels, all gates,” he said.
Hamas releases video of Israeli captive held in Gaza
The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has released a short video showing Israeli captive Evyatar David, who was taken from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.
The footage shows a gaunt David in a small tunnel, mixed with images of starving Palestinian children in Gaza.
“They eat what we eat, they drink what we drink,” Hamas says, adding that “the occupation government has decided to starve them” after rejecting a ceasefire agreement.
This comes a day after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a video of Israeli soldier Rom Braslavski, saying the armed group has lost contact with the team holding him in the aftermath of Israel’s ground invasion of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Palestinians wounded as they rush to few aid trucks in Beit Lahiya
Palestinians rushed toward a limited number of aid trucks that Israel allowed into Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, August 1
As Witkoff visited Gaza, a 12-year-old boy was killed seeking aid
US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff visited one of the food distribution sites run by the controversial Israeli and US-backed GHF near Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday.
But on the day his carefully curated visit took place, medical sources say that elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians seeking aid – including a 12-year-old boy, who was reportedly shot dead while he tried to find food for his family.
“We were hopeful about Witkoff’s visit. We were saying, ‘Thank God, maybe he’ll help, maybe he’ll push for a ceasefire,’” Gaza resident Mahmoud Awad told Al Jazeera.
“But instead, the gunfire increased, and there was even more insistence on killing as many young men and children as possible. “We were hoping for a ceasefire, but instead a child died. Why did the child die?”
