{"id":122727,"date":"2025-08-06T04:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T04:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122727\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T04:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T04:47:10","slug":"israel-says-hamas-is-starving-hostages-security-council-members-say-israel-is-starving-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122727\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel says Hamas is starving hostages; Security Council members say Israel is starving Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council<\/a> on Tuesday to demand the release of its emaciated hostages, including one seen digging his own grave. Their plight drew widespread sympathy \u2014 but the 2 million Palestinians starving in Gaza got even more.<\/p>\n

Not only the Palestinians but most council members blamed the Israeli government and military for the two-month blockade of Gaza and failure to allow enough food into the conflict-wracked territory, where its health ministry has reported over 100 deaths from starvation, including many children.<\/p>\n

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who flew to New York to attend the council meeting, accused Russia and other unnamed council members as well as the international media of perpetuating \u201cso many lies.\u201d He pointed to Hamas and Islamic Jihad\u2019s starvation of hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel \u201cwhile the terrorists enjoy meat, fish and vegetables.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saar insisted that Israel is facilitating \u201chuge amounts of aid into Gaza,\u201d accusing Hamas of looting the food and other items and using it as \u201ca financial tool\u201d to sell and make money. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric has said there is no evidence of this.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s top diplomat also accused the Palestinians of inventing terrorism, and Hamas of wanting to continue the war against Israel instead of reaching a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world has been turned upside down while Hamas runs its propaganda machine,\u201d Saar said. It\u2019s \u201ca world in which Israel is put on a bench of the accused while it fights for its survival. There is a name for it. It\u2019s called antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testimony came from Israeli hostages\u2019 relatives<\/p>\n

Itay David, the older brother of emaciated hostage Evyatar David, who was pictured over the weekend in a Gaza tunnel saying he was digging his own grave, urged the Security Council: \u201cDo not let them die. We don\u2019t have time. Do not let them spend another minute in darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling his brother \u201ca living skeleton,\u201d Itay urged the 15 council members in a video briefing to get humanitarian aid to the hostages, saying they are being broken psychologically and physically by Hamas and denied \u201cthe most basic necessities of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

British U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward reiterated the country\u2019s support for the immediate release of all hostages and condemned parading them for propaganda purposes as a \u201cdepraved\u201d act. \u201cHamas and its terrorist ideologies can have no place in the future governance of Gaza and should never again threaten Israel\u2019s security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Woodward recalled the hopeful ceasefire earlier this year when hostages were released and the U.N. was able to send large amounts of aid into Gaza. \u201cSince the ceasefire ended, the suffering of the hostages and Palestinian civilians has plumbed to new and shocking depths,\u201d she said. \u201cIsrael\u2019s aid restrictions have led to famine now unfolding in Gaza,\u201d as reported by international experts who monitor famine globally.<\/p>\n

Woodward said she spoke to doctors last week who had served in Gaza. \u201cThey had seen children so malnourished that their wounds festered for months without healing,\u201d she said, and saw baby formula confiscated by the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on Israel now to act to alleviate the horrendous suffering,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Discussion focused on both sides<\/p>\n

Sierra Leone\u2019s U.N. ambassador, Michael Imran Kanu, commended Itay David\u2019s advocacy for his brother and the hostages, condemned their \u201cinhumane treatment,\u201d and said Hamas\u2019 hostage-taking is a war crime that must be prosecuted. But, said Kanu, \u201cOne atrocity cannot justify another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we express deep concern for the hostages, we cannot ignore the wider humanitarian catastrophe that has engulfed Gaza,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people of Gaza have been subjected to a blockade and siege that deprived them of food, water, fuel and medical supplies,\u201d which could also constitute a war crime.<\/p>\n

Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea said President Donald Trump has recognized \u201creal starvation\u201d in Gaza and the United States is working to get assistance to civilians. She urged \u201cthose who have professed concern about the reported risk of famine\u201d to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,<\/a> an Israeli-backed American contractor, which she said reported delivering more than 1.5 million meals on Sunday. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to get to its four food distribution sites.<\/p>\n

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, acknowledged \u201cthe distressing, unacceptable video\u201d of 24-year-old Evyatar David, saying \u201cWe reject all inhumane and degrading treatment against anyone, especially persons held in captivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in a strong rebuke, he said, \u201cIsrael is demanding the world to take a stance against starvation when it is actually starving an entire civilian population, when it is shooting at them while they seek water and food.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to demand the release of its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[97,75906,75904,245,69,75907,74009,31236,70,4526,57,4527,15127,3497,99,3462,373,75902,3463,50,9598,80,75905,257,75903,75908,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-122727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-barbara-woodward","10":"tag-blockades","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-dorothy-shea","14":"tag-evyatar-david","15":"tag-famine","16":"tag-gaza","17":"tag-gaza-strip","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-hamas","20":"tag-hostage-situations","21":"tag-humanitarian-crises","22":"tag-israel","23":"tag-israel-government","24":"tag-israel-hamas-war","25":"tag-michael-imran-kanu","26":"tag-mideast-wars","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-palestinian-territories-government","29":"tag-politics","30":"tag-riyad-mansour","31":"tag-russia","32":"tag-sierra-leone","33":"tag-stephane-dujarric","34":"tag-world","35":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}