Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza continues. The Gaza health ministry reported yesterday that the death toll from starvation went up to 122, including 83 children.
Gaza’s Government Media Office has strongly warned of an “unprecedented and imminent humanitarian disaster” being committed by Israel, saying 100,000 children aged two years and under, including 40,000 babies, are at risk of death within days, Al Jazeera reported today. This is due to a “complete lack of baby milk and nutritional supplements, and the continued closure of crossings and prevention of the entry of the simplest basic supplies,” it said in a statement. “We are facing an expected and deliberate mass killing slowly being committed against infants whose mothers have been breastfeeding them water instead of baby milk for days, as a result of the starvation and extermination policy pursued by the ‘Israeli’ occupation.”
Separately, the Director of Medical Relief in Gaza told Al Jazeera that if medicines and medical supplies are not brought in immediately, the death rate will accelerate. There is no food or water, and no aid has been delivered over the past five months. Some 17,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition. The lack of infant formula is causing serious health problems for children.
“We have received promises from UNICEF to deliver six trucks of aid to the health sector today,” but these trucks contain only medical supplies, no food.
The Israeli response to these horrors is to announce that other countries can now resume air drops of food into Gaza. “Humanitarian aid air drops on the Gaza Strip will resume in the upcoming days. They will be managed by the U.A.E. and Jordan,” an Israeli official told AFP. This was tried once before as I recall and it didn’t work out real well.
An earlier effort to air drop relief supplies into Gaza, in March of 2024, proved to be expensive, inefficient and in at least one instance, deadly when a pallet dropped to the ground after its parachute failed to open, killing five people.
