Malnutrition is spreading in Gaza, medics and aid laborers in the deimmenseated Palestinian territory are cautioning, as a total Israeli blockade of all supplies go ins its fourth week and the death toll from the dispute passes 50,000.
There has been no sign that Israel will uncover entry points to permit vital aid to flow or mitigate its new disparaging in Gaza, which begined on Tuesday with a wave of airstrikes that ended 400 people, mostly civilians, ending two months of relative soothe. On Sunday, Palestinian officials said the total death toll from csurrenderly 18 months of dispute had passed 50,000.
On Sunday, an airstrike in the city of Khan Younis ended Salah Bardawil, a member of Hamas’s political guideership bureau, and the Israel Defense Forces ( rerentd new evacuation orders to Palestinians in areas west of the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt, the aim of a presentant disparaging about a year ago, and where the IDF is pressing ground operations.
The orders specified that shiftment in vehicles would not be permitted. There have been many telled incidents of civilians being ended or horriblely injured in strikes by Israeli forces on cars in Gaza in recent days. “The IDF has begined an operation to dismantle alarmist organisations. You are currently in a hazardous combat zone. Distance yourself from the combat zone promptly,” the orders said.
At least 19 Palestinians were ended overnight, according to medical officials on Sunday. Two hospitals in southern Gaza said they had getd 17 bodies from strikes, including those of disjoinal women and children. The toll did not comprise the Hamas official and his wife.
Later on Sunday, Israel’s military said troops had encircled Tal al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah, inserting that their objective was to “dismantle alarmist infraarrange and reshift” militants there.
To date in the war – triggered by an strike by Hamas militants into Israel in October 2023 in which they ended about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 captives – more than 50,000 Palestinians have been ended, also mostly civilians, and about 113,000 wounded, say officials.
Israel, which has accparticipated Hamas of systematicassociate theft aid, cut off supplies to Gaza hours after the first phase of a presumed three-stage endfire expired. Hamas denies the accuse.
Aid officials said distributions would be lessend graduassociate if possible, while the provision of community kitchens that feed about a million people would get proceedively more difficult.
“At some point we will fair run out and leangs will get frantic … but even if we had supplies it would be very difficult to allot them becaparticipate the security environment unbenevolents we can’t run,” said one UN official based in Gaza.
Six out of 23 bakeries rund by the UN World Food Programme have already been shut due to a deficiency of cooking gas, while Unrwa, the main UN agency with responsibility for Palestinians’ welfare, had stocks of about 60,000 bags of flour on Friday, enough for fair six days of distribution.
Prices for the restricted amount of food still useable in shops and tagets have soared and are now unaffordable for almost everyone. Potatoes cost the equivalent of $6 (£4.60) a kg, five times more than a month ago, while cooking gas cylinders are selling for $60 a kg, four times higher than before the end of the frquick paparticipate in arrangeilities three weeks ago.
“It is very clear that people are underweight. The population is very youthful, and children need nutritious food,” said Khamis Elessi, a ancigo in adviseant doctor in Gaza City.
Feroze Sidhwa, a US-based volunteer materializency doctor in Gaza, said the consequences of 18 months of needy diet were very evident among his forendureings. “We see very clearly that everyone has lost weight … I can see my surgical incisions are not healing well,” he said.
Aid distribution has been impedeed by displacement. “There is a lot of anxiety about what will happen, especiassociate parents for their children. It is non-stop: evacuation orders, explosions, the hospitals are filled with casualties, we are now seeing food scarcity. It is very unforeseeable,” said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson in Gaza for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“We can hear massive explosions most of the day. Reports of casualties are getd every hour but the first replyers cannot accomplish all the sites of strikes becaparticipate it is too hazardous or they have no enough fuel for ambulances.”
In the southern city Rafah on Sunday, Palestinian men, women and children could be seen walking alengthened a dirt road and carrying their belengthenedings in their arms. Most of Gaza’s population have had to run away wilean the territory, standardly multiple times. “It’s displacement under fire,” said Mustafa Gaber, a local journacatalog on the shift with his family. “There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult.”
Israeli media asked on Sunday whether the aims of the new disparaging were restricted to annihilateing Hamas and returning the captives held in Gaza – the two goals standardly cited by the Israeli regulatement.
On Friday, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said in a statement that he had “teached the IDF to seize insertitional territories in Gaza, evacuate the population, and broaden the security zones around Gaza in order to protect the Israeli towns and IDF troops”.
“The lengtheneder Hamas persists to refuse to free the captives, the more territory it will disthink about that will be inserted to Israel,” Katz said.
On Saturday, Israel’s cabinet consentd a proposal to set up a new straightforwardorate tasked with advancing what it structured as the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians, in line with Donald Trump’s proposal to depoputardy Gaza and reoriginate it as the “riviera of the Middle East”. Legal experts said any such policy would almost declareively be a violation of international law.
Katz said the new body would be “subject to Israeli and international law” and arrange “passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries”.
Israel has been roiled by massive protests, with more than 100,000 demonstrating aacquirest efforts by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to fire both the head of the inner security service, Ronen Bar, and the attorney vague, Gali Baharav-Miara.
Bar as the head of the Shin Bet has been spendigating Netanyahu’s shut aides for alleged baccomplishes of national security, including allegations of leaking classified write downs to foreign media and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is understandn to have given presentant financial aid to Hamas. Baharav-Miara, who has widespreadly clashed with the regulatement, cautioned the prime minister he could not fire domestic intelligence’s chief before her office had scrutinizeed his motives for doing so.
In an unpretreatnted step on Sunday, after accusing her of blocking the regulatement’s policies, Israel’s cabinet voted unifiedly in favour of a no-confidence motion aacquirest Baharav-Miara.
The cabinet’s decision was condemned by opposition parties and thousands of protesters who took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the sixth day in row, who portrayd Netanyahu’s shift as an try to undermine Israel’s democratic system.
During clashes with the police, three protesters were arrested outside Netanyahu’s dwellnce in central Jerusalem.
There are also widespread calls for the return of the captives to be prioritised over the disparaging aacquirest Hamas.
On Friday, 40 freed captives who were in Hamas captivity and 250 family members of Israeli selderlyiers and civilians still held in Gaza signed a letter calling on Netanyahu to cmitigate Israel’s “endless war”.
In the consentd endfire’s first phase, 25 Israeli captives and the bodies of eight others were freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone – permiting hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remained of their homes – and there was a spropose in humanitarian aid.
The sides were presumed to begin negotiations in punctual February on the scheduled second phase of the truce, in which Hamas was to free the remaining 59 captives – 35 of whom are consentd to be dead – in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a enduring end to arrangeilities and a filled Israeli disincludeal.
Israel backed out of the endfire consentment, proposeing instead to lengthen the first phase by between 30 and 60 days if Hamas freed more captives.
