Israel-Hamas war: Warnings grow over starvation in Gaza

Washington has said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), should be given permission to enter the Gaza Strip. On Monday, he said Israel had stopped him from crossing into the enclave from Egypt. 

"Our belief is that they should be able to visit UNRWA's field of operation, including in Gaza, and we're going to continue to work with the government of Israel to rapidly approve all requested visas for UN and NGO workers," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

Israel has accused UNRWA, which employs about 30,000 people, of being a front for Hamas and alleged, without providing evidence, that 12 members of its staff were involved in the October 7 attacks, an accusation which led to numerous countries, including the United States and Germany to suspend their funding for the agency. In early March, the European Union announced a partial release of funds for the organization.

DW spoke with Martin Frick, the director of the UN's World Food Program (WFP) Germany office, about the acute lack of food and other basic supplies in Gaza.

"People have tried everything to survive and everything they tried is now exhausted," Frick said, adding that people had eaten animal feed and grass to try to survive. 

He warned that if nothing is done, "we will see more, particularly children, dying from hunger in Gaza."

He explained that a famine in Gaza would have long-term effects, particularly on children.

"A child that is not receiving enough nutritious food in the critical time of growing up risks being disabled for a lifetime," he said, adding that one in three children in Gaza is now acutely malnourished.

Frick said malnourishment in Gaza was due not to a lack of aid but rather a lack of access. He said there were "more than 1,000 trucks standing ready," but aid groups require "more access points so we can bring in the trucks to transport the food that is so urgently needed now in Gaza."

The worst effects of a potential famine can only be avoided when the trucks "can cross the border checkpoints much faster at a much bigger quantity and also at border crossing points in the north that are still unavailable for humanitarian transports."

 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Italy opposes a ground incursion by Israeli forces into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

"We will reiterate our opposition to military action on the ground by Israel in Rafah that could have even more catastrophic consequences for the civilians crowded in that area," Meloni told lawmakers in the Senate.

She said it was a priority to open new land routes and a maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave.

Destroying Hamas in Rafah would require a ground incursion by Israeli forces, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a White House call to for Israel to rethink its strategy around the Gazan border city.

Briefing lawmakers, Netanyahu said he had made "supremely clear" to US President Joe Biden "that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there's no way to do that except by going in on the ground."

Biden said on Monday that he had asked Netanyahu to send a team to Washington to discuss how to avoid an all-out assault on Rafah, which lies in southern Gaza on the border to Egypt and is currently packed with some 1 million displaced Palestinians who have sought safety there from months of fighting in other parts of the Gaza Strip. 

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that a major ground offensive in Rafah would be a "mistake" and that Israel could achieve its military aims by other means.

Yemen's Houthis fired missiles at the Mado liquid gas tanker in the Red Sea and Israel's Eilat region, according to their military spokesperson Yahya Sarea.

The Mado is a Marshall Islands-flagged LPG tanker headed to Singapore from Saudi Arabia, maritime shipping trackers showed. The Houthis described it as an American vessel.

The Islamist militia has vowed to attack ships in the Red Sea with ties to Israel. But many of the ships that have come under fire have no connection to the country.

The city of Eilat is located in southern Israel on the Red Sea long known as resort and tourist destination. Israel has intercepted Houthi rockets fired at the region in the past while others have fallen 

The Houthis have said they want to force an end to Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to take longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa. 

Israel fired missiles at several military targets outside the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Syrian Defense Ministry said.

Syrian air defenses intercepted the Israeli "missiles and shot down some of them," the ministry said in a statement, adding that they caused only material damage.

Two Syrian military sources familiar with the strikes said Israel targeted a Hezbollah ammunition depot near the town of Yabroud in the Qalamoun Mountains, northeast of the Syrian capital.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the strikes early Tuesday. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in recent years, mostly against Iranian-linked targets in Syria, but the Israeli military rarely acknowledges them.

The strikes have escalated over the past five months amid the conflict in Gaza and daily exchanges of fire between the Hezbollah militant group and Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Israeli forces killed more than 50 Palestinian gunmen and detained 180 suspected militants in a raid on the Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on X, formerly Twitter.

The raid on Gaza's largest hospital began before dawn Monday, with the military accusing Hamas of using it to hide militants and plan attacks.

At least one soldier was killed by Palestinian gunfire inside the compound, the military said.

The Israeli military previously raided the al-Shifa hospital in November.

Israel has repeatedly said the complex housed an underground Hamas control base, a claim denied by the militants.

The United Nations human rights office said Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza could amount to a war crime.

"The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime," said UN human rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence.

He added that the final determination of whether "starvation is being used as a weapon of war" would be determined by a court of law.

Israel has denied obstructing the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel's spy chief has left Doha, but talks on a Gaza cease-fire and the release of hostages are continuing in the Qatari capital, a Qatari official said.

Mossad chief David Barnea "has left Doha," Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told a regular briefing, adding that "technical teams are meeting as we speak."

Qatar is cautiously optimistic about the Gaza cease-fire talks, al-Ansari added.

Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gazan city of Rafah and central parts of the territory killed 20 Palestinians in the early hours of Tuesday, Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry has said. 

Medical officials said that 14 people had been killed in Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge, with dozens of others wounded. 

An airstrike on a house in the central al-Nuseirat refugee camp killed six other people, the officials said. 

The conflict, which is now in its sixth month, began when Hamas Islamist militants stormed into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli accounts. 

Israel's assault since then has killed more than 31,000 Gazans, according to Gaza health officials.

Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union, as well as Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the whole of Gaza's population is experiencing "severe levels of acute food insecurity," stressing the importance of increasing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

"According to the most respected measure of these things, 100% of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That's the first time an entire population has been so classified," Blinken told a press conference during an official visit to the Philippines.

Blinken's comments came on the eve of his return to the Middle East, where he will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt to discuss efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and increase aid deliveries.

A food security assessment by the United Nations on Monday warned that half of Gazans are experiencing "catastrophic" hunger. Famine is projected to hit northern Gaza by May unless there is urgent intervention.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid into the besieged Palestinian territory, saying there was "no time to lose."

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership on Monday said that "all evidence points towards a major acceleration of deaths and malnutrition"

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday said Israel was using starvation as a "weapon of war," a statement that was denied by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says President Joe Biden has asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send a team of military, intelligence service humanitarian aid specialists to Washington in the coming days.

Biden is keen to express Washington's reservations about the planned offensive in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, Sullivan said, and was eager to discuss possible alternatives.

In a phone call between the two leaders, Netanyahu was said to have agreed to send such a team.

"The president told the prime minister again today that we share the goal of defeating Hamas, but we just believe you need a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen," Sullivan said.

Also on Monday, Israel's military said its troops killed 20 Palestinian militants and detained scores of others in a raid on Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital to target "senior Hamas terrorists."

Soldiers moved in with tanks supported by air strikes to hit the area around the territory's biggest medical center, which is not only crowded with patients but also displaced people.

rc/fb (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)