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25-08-2025
ISTANBUL/ UNITED NATIONS: Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan has written to US President Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and urged her to contact Israel’s prime minister and raise the plight of children in Gaza, authorities in Ankara said on Saturday.
Emine Erdogan wrote that she had been inspired by the letter Melania Trump sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month about children in Ukraine and Russia.
“I have faith that the important sensitivity you have shown for the 648 Ukrainian children … will be extended to Gaza as well,” Emine Erdogan wrote in the letter dated Friday that was published by the Turkish presidency.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“These days, when the world is experiencing a collective awakening and the recognition of Palestine has become a global will. I believe that your call on behalf of Gaza would fulfil a historic responsibility toward the Palestinian people,” Emine Erdogan’s letter added.
A global hunger monitor determined on Friday that Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, escalating pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed that report as an “outright lie”, and said Israel had a policy of preventing not causing starvation.
The Gaza war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Meanwhile, Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine and it will likely spread, a global hunger monitor determined on Friday, an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system said 514,000 people close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City, known as Gaza governorate which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
It was the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.
It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but limited data prevented any precise classification. Media has previously reported on the IPC’s struggle to get access to data required to assess the crisis.
“It is a famine that we could have prevented had we been allowed,” said UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. “Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”
Israel dismissed the findings as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food.
The report was an “outright lie”, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Israel does not have a policy of starvation,” he said in a statement. “Israel has a policy of preventing starvation. Since the beginning of the war Israel has enabled 2 million tons of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, over one ton of aid per person.” (Int’l News Desk)
