UN finds rising child malnutrition in Gaza, where officials say Israeli
strikes kill 93 people
[July 16, 2025]
By WAFAA SHURAFA
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Malnutrition rates among children in
the Gaza Strip have doubled since Israel sharply restricted the entry of
food in March, the U.N. said Tuesday. New Israeli strikes killed more
than 90 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children, according
to health officials.
Hunger has been rising among Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians
since Israel broke a ceasefire in March to resume the war and banned all
food and other supplies from entering Gaza, saying it aimed to pressure
Hamas to release hostages. It slightly eased the blockade in late May,
allowing in a trickle of aid.
UNRWA, the main U.N. agency caring for Palestinians in Gaza, said it had
screened nearly 16,000 children under age 5 at its clinics in June and
found 10.2% of them were acutely malnourished. By comparison, in March,
5.5% of the nearly 15,000 children it screened were malnourished.
New airstrikes kill several families
One strike in the northern Shati refugee camp killed a 68-year-old Hamas
member of the Palestinian legislature, as well as a man and a woman and
their six children who were sheltering in the same building, according
to officials from the heavily damaged Shifa Hospital, where the
casualties were taken.
One of the deadliest strikes hit a house in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa
district on Monday evening and killed 19 members of the family living
inside, according to Shifa Hospital. The dead included eight women and
six children. A strike on a tent housing displaced people in the same
district killed a man and a woman and their two children.
The Israeli military did not comment on the strikes.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a daily report Tuesday afternoon that the
bodies of 93 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to
hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, along with 278 wounded. It did
not specify the total number of women and children among the dead.
The Hamas politician killed in a strike early Tuesday, Mohammed Faraj
al-Ghoul, was a member of the bloc of representatives from the group
that won seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the last
national elections, held in 2006.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and tries to avoid
harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the
militants operate in densely populated areas. But daily, it hits homes
and shelters where people are living without warning or explanation of
the target.
Malnutrition grows
UNICEF, which screens children separately from UNRWA, also reported a
marked increase in malnutrition cases. It said this week its clinics had
documented 5,870 cases of malnutrition among children in June, the
fourth straight month of increases and more than double the around 2,000
cases it documented in February.
Experts have warned of famine since Israel tightened its lengthy
blockade in March.
Israel has allowed an average of 69 trucks a day carrying supplies,
including food, since it eased the blockade in May, according to the
latest figures from COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of
coordinating aid. That is far below the hundreds of trucks a day the
U.N. says are needed to sustain Gaza’s population.
On Tuesday, COGAT blamed the U.N. for failing to distribute aid, saying
in a post on X that thousands of pallets of supplies were inside Gaza
waiting to be picked up by U.N. trucks. The U.N. says it has struggled
to pick up and distribute aid because of Israeli military restrictions
on its movements and the breakdown in law and order.
Israel has also let in food for distribution by an American contractor,
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. GHF says it has distributed food boxes
with the equivalent of more than 70 million meals since late May at the
four centers it runs in the Rafah area of southern Gaza and in central
Gaza.
[to top of second column]
|
Hossam Azzam holds the body of his child, Amir, who was killed in an
Israeli military airstrike on Gaza, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City
Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
More than 840 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,600
others wounded in shootings as they walk for hours trying to reach
the GHF centers, according to the Health Ministry. Witnesses say
Israeli forces open fire with barrages of live ammunition to control
crowds on the roads to the GHF centers, which are located in
military-controlled zones.
The military says it has fired warning shots at people it says have
approached its forces in a suspicious manner. GHF says no shootings
have taken place in or immediately around its distribution sites.
No breakthrough in ceasefire efforts
The latest attacks came after U.S. President Donald Trump and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held two days of talks
last week that ended with no breakthrough in negotiations over a
ceasefire and hostage release.
Israel has killed more than 58,400 Palestinians and wounded more
than 139,000 others in its retaliation campaign since Hamas’ Oct. 7,
2023, attack, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Just over half
the dead are women and children, according to the ministry, which
does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its attack 21 month ago, in
which militants stormed into southern Israel and killed some 1,200
people, mostly civilians. They abducted 251 others, and the
militants are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them
believed to be alive.
U.S. calls for probe into killing of Palestinian-American
In a separate development, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee called on
Israel to investigate the killing of a 20-year-old
Palestinian-American whose family said was beaten to death by Jewish
settlers over the weekend in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,”
Huckabee wrote on X.
Seifeddin Musalat, born in Florida, and a local friend were killed
Friday. Musalat was beaten to death by Israeli settlers on his
family’s land, his cousin Diana Halum told reporters. The family had
called on the U.S. State Department to investigate his death and
hold the settlers accountable.
The Israeli military said a confrontation erupted after Palestinians
hurled stones at Israelis in the area earlier in the day, lightly
wounding two people.
Huckabee, like many in the Trump administration, is a strong
supporter of Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal by
most of the international community and seen by the Palestinians as
a major obstacle to peace.
Israel strikes Lebanon's Bekaa Valley
Also on Tuesday, Israel launched a series of strikes in Lebanon’s
eastern Bekaa Valley, targeting what the military said were
compounds of the Hezbollah militant group.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that one of the
strikes hit a Syrian refugee camp, killing seven Syrians.
Altogether, the strikes killed 12 people and wounded eight, it said.
Hezbollah said one of the strikes hit a rig used to drill water
wells.
Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon
since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement nominally brought an end
to the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. Some 4,000 people
were killed in Lebanon during the war and more than 250 since the
ceasefire.
___
Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this
report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
