‘The situation is devastating’: UN warns food and water in Gaza will run out ‘very soon’
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called the situation in the Gaza Strip “dire” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.
The situation is “devastating” at the moment in Gaza, the WFP’s Palestine country director, Samer Abdeljaber, said in an interview on Thuesday.
We’re seeing shortages of fuel, of water [and] electricity. We are seeing our shelters that are overcrowded. We don’t have capacity.
He added:
The bakeries are not going to be able to provide food for tomorrow. So tomorrow is going to be a very difficult situation for the people in the shelters and the people outside the shelters.
“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at WFP, told Reuters.
We’re providing food to thousands of people that have sought shelter in schools and elsewhere across the territory. But we’re going to run out very soon.
He urged Israel and Egypt to create secure corridors for agency workers to be able to bring supplies into Gaza and to make sure UN staff could work safely in the area.
We’ve seen a number of sites that are considered humanitarian, or clinics and schools that have been hit by the strikes. So … we again … we are calling on the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would run out shortly, adding that its stocks of aid and medicine within Gaza were stranded for want of safe passage.
Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, said earlier today that no power, water or fuel would be allowed to enter Gaza until Israeli hostages are returned home.
Key events
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‘The situation is devastating’: UN warns food and water in Gaza will run out ‘very soon’
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Palestinian president ‘rejects’ civilian killings, hostage taking, on both sides
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Gaza health ministry says 447 children and 248 women killed in Israeli strikes
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Gaza health ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians
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Damascus and Aleppo airports reported out of action after Israeli attacks
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First UK evacuation flight to depart from Tel Aviv later today
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Blinken says 25 Americans killed in Hamas attacks
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Syrian state news says Israel launched air attacks on Damascus and Aleppo airports
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How Israel responds to the Hamas attack matters, says Blinken
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Summary
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Israeli settlers killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health ministry says
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Israel confirms identity of 97 hostages held in Gaza
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UK minister says Hamas responsible for Israeli attacks on Gaza
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US secretary of state Antony Blinken lands in Tel Aviv
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Israeli minister says no power, water, fuel to Gaza until hostages freed
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Hamas fighters still making attempts to enter Israel but have been blocked, IDF says
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German chancellor Scholz confirms suspending development aid
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German chancellor Scholz says working to free all hostages
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Norwegian Air cancels evacuation flight over lack of insurance
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Summary
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Red Cross says ready to help ‘facilitate’ the release of hostages
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Israel conducts ‘large-scale’ strike on Gaza
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Israeli ambassador says Japan should be ‘vigilant’ on Palestinian aid
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China envoy willing to work with Egypt to promote immediate ceasefire
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15 Palestinians killed, several wounded in Israeli strikes, says Hamas
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‘Senior Hamas operative’ killed, says Israeli air force
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What is Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza?
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Sydney pro-Palestine march replaced with ‘static demonstration’
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Report: desperation inside Gaza’s hospitals as casualties mount
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Blinken expected to meet Palestinian president Abbas
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Gaza death toll rises to 1,200
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Thai death toll in Israel-Gaza conflict rises to 21
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More than 338,000 people displaced in Gaza: UN
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Biden decries Hamas ‘campaign of pure cruelty’
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Opening summary
The US “hopes and expects” the Israeli military to “do the right things” in prosecuting its war against Hamas, but will not place any conditions on its security assistance to Israel, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said.
“In terms of conditions that we would place on the security assistance that we’re providing to Israel, we have not placed any conditions on the provision of this equipment,” Austin said at Nato headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
This is a professional military, led by professional leadership, and we would hope and expect that they would do the right things in the prosecution of their campaign.
‘The situation is devastating’: UN warns food and water in Gaza will run out ‘very soon’
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called the situation in the Gaza Strip “dire” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.
The situation is “devastating” at the moment in Gaza, the WFP’s Palestine country director, Samer Abdeljaber, said in an interview on Thuesday.
We’re seeing shortages of fuel, of water [and] electricity. We are seeing our shelters that are overcrowded. We don’t have capacity.
He added:
The bakeries are not going to be able to provide food for tomorrow. So tomorrow is going to be a very difficult situation for the people in the shelters and the people outside the shelters.
“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at WFP, told Reuters.
We’re providing food to thousands of people that have sought shelter in schools and elsewhere across the territory. But we’re going to run out very soon.
He urged Israel and Egypt to create secure corridors for agency workers to be able to bring supplies into Gaza and to make sure UN staff could work safely in the area.
We’ve seen a number of sites that are considered humanitarian, or clinics and schools that have been hit by the strikes. So … we again … we are calling on the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said fuel for hospital generators in Gaza would run out shortly, adding that its stocks of aid and medicine within Gaza were stranded for want of safe passage.
Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, said earlier today that no power, water or fuel would be allowed to enter Gaza until Israeli hostages are returned home.
Here are more photos from Gaza and Israel today:
Warning sirens have sounded in northern Israel.
The military said it “launched an interceptor following an aerial identification” and was investigating the cause.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, will travel to Israel tomorrow.
Here’s a video of the press conference earlier in Tel Aviv with US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Palestinian president ‘rejects’ civilian killings, hostage taking, on both sides
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has spoken to the king of Jordan, Abdullah II.
Palestine’s main news network, Wafa, cited Abbas as stressing “the need to move to political action to end the occupation and achieve peace, stressing the rejection of practices related to killing civilians or abusing them on both sides, calling for the release of civilians, prisoners and detainees, and stressing the need to stop settler terrorism against our people in Palestinian cities, villages and camps in the West Bank”.
Two Palestinian rights groups have released a statement accusing Israel of killing 24-year-old Attiya Fathi Al-Nabaheen, along with 12 members of his family, in a “targeted airstrike”.
Adalah, a Palestinian-run human rights group focusing on legal issues, and the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said they were previously pursuing a lengthy legal battle on his behalf against the Israeli state for shooting him in 2014 – an incident that left him paralysed from the neck down.
“At approximately 11.30 a.m on Sunday, 8 October 2023, Israeli warplanes targeted–without prior warning – the four-storey house of the Al-Nabaheen family, situated to the east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp, in Gaza’s Middle Area District,” the statement said.
“The attack also resulted in the complete destruction of the Al-Nabaheen family’s house. According to Tamir Al-Nabaheen, Attiya’s brother, who survived the targeted airstrike, the attack occurred while his children were playing with their cousins at the building’s entrance. Tragically, Tamir’s three children, as well as their cousins, were killed in the attack.”
The statement added: “Attiya Fathi Al-Nabaheen was the victim of two grave war crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces.”
Gaza health ministry says 447 children and 248 women killed in Israeli strikes
We reported earlier that the Gaza health ministry said 1,400 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli strikes since Saturday. The ministry has now provided more details:
447 children and 248 women are among the 1,417 killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, it said.
The international non-profit, Reporters Without Borders, has said Israeli strikes have killed three journalists so far, and two others died as a result of gunshot wounds. The group did not say who shot the two.
Eleven workers with the UN Palestinian refugee agency have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the organisation has said.
Gaza health ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians
The health ministry in Gaza just released the updated toll from the Israeli airstrikes that began on Saturday after the Hamas attack.
It said the Israeli bombings had killed 1,417 Palestinians and wounded 6,238 since Saturday.
Diplomats in Brussels have said that defence ministers at today’s Nato meeting were left stunned after the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, showed them “shocking” and “horrific” video from the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians.
Reuters reports that Gallant, who remotely attended the one-hour Nato session about Israel, briefed ministers on the attack and showed them an “uncensored video of Hamas atrocities”.
“It was horrific. It brought home to everyone the reality of what happened,” one western diplomat said.
Another source spoke of “graphic and shocking footage” and described Nato allies as united in their support for Israel.
The video had “graphic elements” with “some blurring to protect the dignity of victims”, an official in the room said.
My colleague Lili Bayer is live blogging the details of the Nato meeting here.
Iran’s foreign minister accused Israel of seeking “genocide” by enforcing a siege against Gaza, according to Iranian state TV, before a visit to Iraq’s capital on Thursday.
“Today, the continuation of war crimes by Netanyahu and Zionists against the civilians of Gaza, besieging, cutting off water and electricity, and denying entry of medicine and food, has created conditions where the Zionists are seeking a genocide of all people in Gaza,” Reuters reports Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said.
“The war we witness today in the Gaza Strip is not just the Zionists’ war against Hamas, it is the Zionists’ war against all Palestinians.”
