Israel starves child to death in Gaza, as supplies rot at border

Israeli forces killed at least 25 Palestinians since dawn on Saturday morning, including 13 people who were desperately trying to get aid amid the gruelling blockade.

An infant also died on Saturday due to starvation, bringing the toll of people who have died from malnutrition since the start of the war to 123. The toll includes 83 children and comes against the backdrop of warnings from aid agencies that children and the elderly are the most vulnerable.

As starvation spreads and Israel continues to obstruct any aid coming into the enclave, Israeli forces have admitted to destroying food, water and medical supplies on trucks that at the Kerem Shalom (Karam Abu Salem) crossing, The New Arab’s Arabic language sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, reported.

Citing official Hebrew media, the forces destroyed the contents of the trucks as the supplies were left to rot on them for weeks and months.

Israel’s Kan broadcaster also reported on Friday that trucks carrying tens of thousands of humanitarian aid parcels were left in the sun for weeks without being distributed, leaving them to spoil.

At least 17,000 children suffer from malnutrition in Gaza currently, with deaths expected to accelerate rapidly if urgent assistance is not allowed in.

This comes as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced what he called a “lack of humanity and compassion” for Palestinians in Gaza, which he said was a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience”.

In a joint statement on Friday, Paris, London and Berlin all called for an immediate end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

In a statement, the three nations said: “We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the delivery of aid and urgently allow the UN and NGOs to carry out their work to combat hunger”.

This comes as the UN World Food Programme warned that the crisis in the Gaza Strip has “reached unprecedented levels of despair,” and that “nearly one in three people go without food for days”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel is currently assessing “alternatives” with the US on how to return captives held in Gaza.

Israel has come under mounting criticism in recent months for its obstruction of aid, with a former US soldier working for the notorious Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation telling the BBC that he had “without question…witnessed war crimes” as civilians were killed while seeking aid.

Anthony Aguilar said he witnessed Israeli soldiers and US contractors working at the distribution sites fire live ammunition, artillery and mortar rounds at civilians who had not eaten in days.

“In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population until I was in Gaza at the hands of the [Israeli army] and US contractors,” he told the BBC.

Prior to Aguilar’s testimony, Palestinians eyewitnesses had said for months that Israeli forces and GHF contractors had been pening deadly fire on aid seekers.

Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed at GHF distribution sites since they started operating.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Risheq has hit back at US President Donald Trump’s claims that Palestinian negotiators “didn’t really want to make a deal”.

In a statement posted on Telegram, al-Risheq said Trump and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, did not “align with the progress of the negotiating progress, which was actually witnessing progress”.

He said the pair overlooked “the real impediment to all agreements, which is the Netanyahu government.”

Israel has continued to brutally pound the enclave, with scores of civilians being killed daily.

The war on Gaza has killed over 59,676 people since October 2023, but the true death toll is believed to be much higher, with thousands of uncounted victims trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.