In the ruins of Gaza, children are starving to death and there's no cease-fire in sight
Children in Gaza are starving to death five months after Hamas' attacks on Israel, which has seen it's military campaign stall in the enclave.
Five months after Hamas launched multipronged attacks on Israel, almost half of Gaza’s buildings lie in ruins and at least 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, which, along with aid agencies, is warning that some of the most vulnerable children in the territory have begun to starve to death.
The Israeli military controls swaths of the Gaza Strip, and it has threatened to attack Rafah, a southern city where 1.5 million Palestinians have fled, unless a cease-fire deal is reached by next week. Israel has not achieved its military goals: destroying Hamas in response to its Oct. 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people, and rescuing the 100-plus remaining hostages taken that day. It is unclear whether either is even possible.
Abroad, the worsening humanitarian tragedy has heaped international pressure on Israel. Even friends such as the U.S., which gives Israel $3 billion in weapons and other military aid every year, have joined the chorus, rhetorically at least, pressuring Israel urgently to allow more aid into the enclave, where Palestinians are huddled in encampments and sleeping on the streets.
The U.S. has also been sponsoring talks in Egypt to negotiate a cease-fire by the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month, which begins Sunday. That could mean a hostage-prisoner swap, a halt in fighting and a new flow of aid into Gaza. But large disagreements persist, and there was no sign of a breakthrough Thursday when Hamas said that its delegation had left the Egyptian capital to consult with its leadership.
“When children are starting” to “die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other,” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office, said at a news briefing Tuesday. “If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood Gaza with the aid that it needs?”
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