More than 100 NGOs warn 'mass starvation' spreading across Gaza
GAZA CITY
More than 100 aid organizations and human rights groups warned on July 23 that "mass starvation" was spreading in Gaza, as the United States said its top envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and aid corridor.
Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict.
But it denied blocking supplies, announcing that 950 trucks' worth of aid were in Gaza and waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute it.
A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that "our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away.”
The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through U.N.-led mechanisms.
The United Nations said that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since the U.S., and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May, effectively sidelining the longstanding U.N.-led system.
In their statement, the humanitarian organizations said warehouses with tons of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from delivering the goods.
"Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions," the signatories said.
"It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage," they added.
"The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the "horror" facing Palestinians in Gaza under Israeli military attack was unprecedented in recent years.
On the ground, the Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and the north and had hit dozens of "terror targets" across the Palestinian territory.
The United Nations said that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since the U.S., and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May, effectively sidelining the longstanding U.N.-led system.
Mediators, meanwhile, have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with expectations that Witkoff would join the talks as they entered their final stages.
The United States said its envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe this week for talks on Gaza and may then visit the Middle East.
Witkoff comes with "a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
