NEW YORK: The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not even cry.
Addressing a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.
“When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.
She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.
“Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.
She insisted aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.
“Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.
The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.
A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City.
The IPC projected that the famine would expand by the end of September to cover around two-thirds of Gaza.
NGO says starving Gaza children too weak to cry
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NGO says starving Gaza children too weak to cry
- Save the Children president describes to the UN Security Council in horrific detail the impact of famine on children in Gaza
Hezbollah chief says supports state diplomacy to stop Israeli aggression
- The state has chosen “diplomacy to end the aggression and implement” a November 2024 ceasefire deal “and we support it continuing in this direction,” Qassem said
- “They want to eliminate our existence,” Qassem said, but “we will defend ourselves”
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday said his group supported the Lebanese state’s pursuit of diplomacy to end Israeli attacks, while also criticizing the inclusion of a civilian representative in recent talks with Israel.
The state has chosen “diplomacy to end the aggression and implement” a November 2024 ceasefire deal “and we support it continuing in this direction,” Qassem said in a televised address.
Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades on Wednesday under the auspices of the year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism, a move Lebanon’s president said was to avoid prospects of another war in Lebanon.
Qassem criticized the move and urged authorities to reconsider.
“We consider this measure an additional misstep on top of the sin” of the government’s decision in August to task the army with disarming Hezbollah, he said.
“Have you made a gratuitous concession? This concession will not change the enemy’s position, nor its aggression or occupation,” Qassem said, accusing Israel and the United States of wanting Lebanese authorities to be negotiating “under fire.”
“They want to eliminate our existence,” Qassem said, but “we will defend ourselves, our people, our country. We are prepared to sacrifice everything, and we will not surrender.”
He accused Israel of violating the year-old ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and his Iran-backed group, which emerged heavily weakened with its arsenal pummelled and senior commanders killed including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Qassem said his group was cooperating with the Lebanese authorities, and that America and Israel should have “no say in how we manage our domestic affairs,” calling their imposition of conditions on Lebanon as “unacceptable.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said the new talks were strictly limited to fully implementing last year’s truce and did not amount to broader peace discussions.
