{"id":1689,"date":"2025-07-11T22:45:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T22:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/11\/israel-turning-gaza-into-graveyard-of-children-and-starving-unrwa-chief\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T22:45:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T22:45:18","slug":"israel-turning-gaza-into-graveyard-of-children-and-starving-unrwa-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/11\/israel-turning-gaza-into-graveyard-of-children-and-starving-unrwa-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel turning Gaza into \u2018graveyard of children and starving\u2019: UNRWA chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Israel is engineering a \u201ccruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill\u201d in Gaza, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees says, as the world body reports that since May, some 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder our watch, Gaza has become the graveyard of children [and] starving people,\u201d UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Friday.<\/p>\n

People in Gaza have \u201cno way out\u201d, he said. \u201cTheir choice is between 2 deaths: starvation or being [shot] at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lazzarini was reacting to the Israeli military\u2019s killing of 15 people, including nine children and four women, as they waited in line for nutritional supplements in the city of Deir el-Balah<\/a> in central Gaza on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n

Inaction & silence are complicities.
Under our watch, #Gaza<\/a> has become the graveyard of children & starving people. <\/p>\n

No way out. Their choice is between 2 deaths: starvation or being shoot at.<\/p>\n

The most cruel & machiavellian scheme to kill, in total impunity.<\/p>\n

Our norms & values\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/oWQYXSn1fb<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 11, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His comments came on another bloody day<\/a> in the Strip, with medical sources reporting that 45 people had been killed \u2013 11 of them near a GHF-run aid centre in Rafah.<\/p>\n

The controversial US- and Israel-backed GHF has effectively sidelined Gaza\u2019s vast UN-led aid delivery network since it started operations in May, after Israel eased a more than two-month total blockade on the Strip.<\/p>\n

Since then, 819 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday. He said 634 were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites<\/a> \u2013 which number four for the entire enclave \u2013 and 185 were killed close to other humanitarian aid convoys, including some run by the UN.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said between May and July 7, the UN had recorded 798 killings near aid points in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Israeli soldiers and US contractors working with GHF have admitted to shooting unarmed Palestinians gathering for food, according to separate recent reports by Israeli outlet Haaretz<\/a> and The Associated Press<\/a> news agency.<\/p>\n

Reporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera\u2019s Gabriel Elizondo said that Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), had given a briefing in which he reported the situation in Gaza was \u201cthe worst that he has ever seen it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Skau, who had just returned from his fourth trip to Gaza, had said the WFP had enough food to feed the entire population of Gaza for two months, but the trucks were not being let in.<\/p>\n

Instead, Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to rely on the GHF.<\/p>\n

\u2018A second Nakba\u2019<\/h2>\n

The extent of the killing at the GHF sites emerged as Israel advanced its plans for what it calls a \u201chumanitarian city\u201d \u2013 likened by analysts to a concentration camp<\/a> \u2013 to be built on the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.<\/p>\n

Satellite images analysed by Al Jazeera show large tracts of land in Rafah being cleared of buildings, seemingly in preparation for the forced transfer of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had told journalists this week that the zone would eventually house Gaza\u2019s entire population of 2.1 million.<\/p>\n

British Israeli analyst Daniel Levy, president of the US\/Middle East Project, noted that the three GHF aid hubs<\/a> located in the south were an integral part of a plan to bait Palestinians into moving towards Rafah.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe positioning of these GHF distribution sites is a premeditated part of a plan of social-demographic engineering to move Palestinians \u2013 to relocate, displace and kettle them \u2013 into this area in the south,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Rafah, he said, was being used as a \u201cstaging post\u201d to \u201cethnically cleanse\u201d Palestinians from the rest of Gaza. \u201cWe are witnessing, it seems, a second Nakba,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The GHF, for its part, boasted on Friday that it was \u201creinventing\u201d aid delivery. \u201cOur secure and innovative channels mean aid is placed directly into the hands of those who desperately need it,\u201d the group said on X.<\/p>\n

\u2018On the brink of death every day\u2019<\/h2>\n

As of Friday night, 45 people \u2013 including the 11 slain at the GHF site in Rafah \u2013 had been killed in the enclave since dawn, according to medical sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Among those killed, at least eight people died after Israel bombed the Halimah al-Saadiyah School in Jabalia an-Nazla, which was sheltering the displaced. The military struck at night as people slept.<\/p>\n

Witness Ahmed Khalla told Al Jazeera he found dead people lying on the floor of a classroom, coming upon scenes he described as \u201cbeyond horrific\u201d<\/a>, including \u201ca little girl without a head \u2013 literally, without a head\u201d.<\/p>\n

At least one Palestinian was killed and others were wounded following an Israeli attack that targeted a house on Jaffa Street in the Tuffah area, east of Gaza City. Sources at al-Ahli Arab Hospital told Al Jazeera that the victim was a child.<\/p>\n

Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry said in a statement that patients in the enclave\u2019s hospitals \u201ccontinue to be placed on the brink of death every day\u201d due to a lack of fuel.<\/p>\n

It said that as hospitals are forced to ration fuel, this leads to cutting off electricity in some departments and halting some services, including kidney dialysis treatments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also reduces the ability to operate a sufficient number of ambulances, forcing citizens to transport the injured and sick in animal-drawn carts,\u201d said the statement.<\/p>\n

Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid access into Gaza are placing countless lives at risk, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN\u2019s Guterres, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch denials are life-threatening,\u201d he said during a news conference, stressing that \u201cevery day without a ceasefire brings more preventable deaths in Gaza, children dying in pain, and hungry people shot while trying to reach the trickle of aid allowed\u201d by Israel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel is engineering a \u201ccruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill\u201d in Gaza, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees says, as the world body reports that since May, some 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. \u201cUnder our watch, Gaza has become the graveyard of children [and] starving people,\u201d UNRWA chief … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}