Star Metro - Israel denies Gaza 'mass starvation' accusations

More than 100 aid and human rights groups said earlier Wednesday that "mass starvation" was spreading in the Gaza Strip, and France warned of a growing "risk of famine" caused by "the blockade imposed by Israel".

The head of the World Health Organization also weighed in, saying that a "large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving".

"I don't know what you would call it other than mass starvation -- and it's man-made," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

An Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, said there was "no famine caused by Israel. There is a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas."

President Isaac Herzog, visiting troops in Gaza, maintained that Israel was acting "according to international law" while Hamas was "trying to sabotage" aid distribution in a bid to obstruct the Israeli military campaign that began more than 21 months ago.

An organisation backed by the United States and Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), began distributing aid in Gaza in May as Israel eased a two-month total blockade, effectively sidelining the longstanding UN-led system.

Aid agencies have said permissions from Israel were still limited, and coordination to safely move trucks to where they are needed was a major challenge in an active war zone.

Mencer accused Hamas, whose attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the war, of preventing supplies from being distributed and looting aid for themselves or to sell at inflated prices.

"Aid has been flowing into Gaza," he said but blamed the United Nations and its associates for failing to pick up truckloads of foodstuffs and other essentials cleared and waiting on the Gaza side of the border.

- 'Torment' -

The United States meanwhile said its top Middle East envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and an aid corridor, raising hopes of a breakthrough after more than two weeks of negotiations.

On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency told AFP that Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight, including a pregnant woman in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and elsewhere in the north, and had hit dozens of "terror targets" across the coastal territory.

Getting vital aid into Gaza and to the more than two million people who need it has become a key issue in the conflict, with reports from doctors and aid agencies of increasing cases of malnutrition and starvation.

The humanitarian organisations said in a joint statement that warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched inside and outside Gaza, while people were "trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires".

"It is not just physical torment but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage," they added.

In Khan Yunis, in Gaza's south, residents told AFP how they battled to get food aid, with one man calling it "a catastrophic scene and a real famine".

The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food from GHF sites.

GHF and Israel have accused Hamas of firing on civilians.

- Stalled talks -

Even after Israel began easing its aid blockade in late May, Gaza's population is still suffering extreme scarcities.

GHF said the UN, which refuses to work with it over neutrality concerns, "has a capacity and operational problem" and called for "more collaboration" to deliver life-saving aid.

COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said the "main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid" was a "collection bottleneck" blamed on international organisations.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,219 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Hamas's October 2023 attack which sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with each side blaming the other for refusing to budge on their key demands.

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T.Murray--SMC