Tuesday , March 18 2025

1 million Gaza children ‘struggling to survive’ Israel’s blockade

18-03-2025

GAZA STRIP/ JERUSALEM: Drinking water, food, and medicine are running out fast with UNICEF saying it’s critical for Israel to open up Gaza immediately with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children “struggling to survive”.

Yemen’s Houthis report new raids on the Red Sea port of Hodeidah as the death toll from US’s attacks on Sunday rises to 53. Victims include five children and two women.

US officials say they will keep hitting Yemen until the Houthis back down on their threat to resume attacks on Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 48,572 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 112,032 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. Gaza’s Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700 saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks and more than 200 taken captive.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani emphasized the need to help Palestinians in Gaza during a meeting with the UN’s reconstruction coordinator for the enclave, Sigrid Kaag.

Sheikh Mohammed said the international community must “shoulder its responsibilities to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and to firmly confront the starvation policy by the Israeli occupation in its brutal war against brotherly Palestinian people”, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said.

The Israeli army said it launched air strikes in central and southern Gaza on “terrorists attempting to plant explosives” near Israeli forces stationed in the territory.

According to the military, one strike hit three fighters in central Gaza as they allegedly set up an improvised explosive device, while another targeted several people in Rafah, in southern Gaza.

On Saturday, Israeli attacks on northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya city killed nine people, including four Palestinian journalists, its civil defence agency said, in the deadliest assault on a single site since January 19 when the ceasefire took effect.

Life-saving charity kitchens in Gaza continue to wind down services as essentials such as food, potable water, and cooking gas disappear because of Israel’s total blockade on humanitarian relief.

Hunger is consuming young and old alike.

“I used to rely on this simple community kitchen for food, but now even they are struggling to feed us,” said Om Mahmoud, a displaced Palestinian woman in Deir el-Balah.

“My children are crying at home from hunger and I have nothing to give them. I can’t afford to buy what we need. There’s simply no way to survive”.

The army directed an air raid at a van in the village of Yohmor, in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least one person was killed while local media reported another was wounded.

The Israeli military has maintained attacks on Lebanon despite the ceasefire signed in November. Defense Minister Israel Katz said it struck “Hezbollah terrorists”, adding Israel will show “zero tolerance towards any violation” of the truce.

Israeli authorities have notified the Palestinian Authority about the seizure of 12 hectares (30 acres) of land in the town of Jalbun, north of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. The mayor of the town told Wafa the land is owned by Palestinians who have grown olive trees there for more than 50 years.

In February, Israeli officials documented the seizure of half a hectare (1.5 acres) of Palestinian land, and designated 1,600 hectares (3,950 acres) for settlers to graze their cattle, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)

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