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Vlad_The_Impaler on scored.co
9 months ago6 points(+0/-0/+6Score on mirror)
The head of the main UN agency serving Palestinians has said his frontline staff are fainting from hunger, as the number of people dying of starvation in Gaza continued to rise and hopes for a ceasefire faded as negotiations collapsed.
“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave … when caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said on Thursday.
At least 45 people have died of hunger in the last four days. The UN and aid groups blame Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory for the lack of food.
Lazzarini said in a statement that a colleague in the territory had told him: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
He said Unrwa had the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt and urged Israel to allow “humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza”.
Reports of people fainting and dropping dead of hunger have emerged in recent days. Civil defence workers have released photographs of gaunt bodies with little more than skin covering their bones.
Medical sources in Gaza said two more people had died of hunger on Thursday, both of whom had been ill and had not eaten for days.
As international pressure mounted for a breakthrough to end nearly two years of devastating war, Emmanuel Macron announced France would recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly in September.
“True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the State of Palestine. I will make a formal announcement at the United Nations General Assembly in September,” the French president wrote on X and Instagram.
Earlier, Israel and the US announced they were recalling their negotiators from Doha, where peace talks were being held. The US envoy, Steve Witkoff, accused Hamas of not acting in good faith.
“We have decided to bring our team home from Doha for consultations after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza,” he wrote on X.
He said the US would consider “alternative options” to recover the hostages and “create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza” without elaborating on what those alternatives might be.
Witkoff’s announcement came after Hamas sent its response on the latest ceasefire proposal to mediators. It was an abrupt about-face to the optimism earlier in the day, when the Associated Press reported an Israeli official saying the Hamas proposal was workable.
Witkoff had also been scheduled to meet the top Israeli adviser, Ron Dermer, and the Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Sardinia, which was regarded as a positive sign for the ceasefire talks. It was unclear if or when those meetings would still happen.
Hamas’s proposal included requests on the number of prisoners exchanged, the agencies to be allowed to distribute aid in Gaza and a permanent end to the war rather than a ceasefire, Israeli media reported.
The group’s demands came as global pressure mounted on Israel to stop fighting and a growing number of countries expressed horror at the scenes of starvation in the territory.
A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters the Hamas response was “flexible, positive and took into consideration the growing suffering in Gaza and the need to stop the starvation”. A Hamas source said the proposal included a fresh roadmap for a prisoner exchange, which it told Reuters was a top priority for the group.
“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave … when caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said on Thursday.
At least 45 people have died of hunger in the last four days. The UN and aid groups blame Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory for the lack of food.
Lazzarini said in a statement that a colleague in the territory had told him: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
He said Unrwa had the equivalent of 6,000 loaded trucks of food and medical supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt and urged Israel to allow “humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza”.
Reports of people fainting and dropping dead of hunger have emerged in recent days. Civil defence workers have released photographs of gaunt bodies with little more than skin covering their bones.
Medical sources in Gaza said two more people had died of hunger on Thursday, both of whom had been ill and had not eaten for days.
As international pressure mounted for a breakthrough to end nearly two years of devastating war, Emmanuel Macron announced France would recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly in September.
“True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the State of Palestine. I will make a formal announcement at the United Nations General Assembly in September,” the French president wrote on X and Instagram.
Earlier, Israel and the US announced they were recalling their negotiators from Doha, where peace talks were being held. The US envoy, Steve Witkoff, accused Hamas of not acting in good faith.
“We have decided to bring our team home from Doha for consultations after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza,” he wrote on X.
He said the US would consider “alternative options” to recover the hostages and “create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza” without elaborating on what those alternatives might be.
Witkoff’s announcement came after Hamas sent its response on the latest ceasefire proposal to mediators. It was an abrupt about-face to the optimism earlier in the day, when the Associated Press reported an Israeli official saying the Hamas proposal was workable.
Witkoff had also been scheduled to meet the top Israeli adviser, Ron Dermer, and the Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Sardinia, which was regarded as a positive sign for the ceasefire talks. It was unclear if or when those meetings would still happen.
Hamas’s proposal included requests on the number of prisoners exchanged, the agencies to be allowed to distribute aid in Gaza and a permanent end to the war rather than a ceasefire, Israeli media reported.
The group’s demands came as global pressure mounted on Israel to stop fighting and a growing number of countries expressed horror at the scenes of starvation in the territory.
A Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters the Hamas response was “flexible, positive and took into consideration the growing suffering in Gaza and the need to stop the starvation”. A Hamas source said the proposal included a fresh roadmap for a prisoner exchange, which it told Reuters was a top priority for the group.