The war may be in Gaza, but its effects can mean starvation in the West Bank
There is an urgency to the work of the aid team in the West Bank as the war in Gaza becomes even more grim.
The team pack boxes with staples – flour, oil, rice and lentils – to be delivered to those in need.
“It is in an economic catastrophe at the moment,” Anton Goodman tells me.
Anton is an Israeli Jewish human rights activist working in the West Bank alongside Palestinians to deliver food aid at a time when more and more families are facing difficulties.
Anton Goodman
“When we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were working in Israel on 7 October, suddenly their jobs ended and they haven’t received any salaries since then.
“Even the Palestinian Authority’s staff haven’t been receiving a salary, many of them.
“Along with that, you’ve got a lot of army restrictions around freedom of movement and getting to workplaces – and also the settler violence on the ground.”
A truck delivering food and aid from Ramallah to Hebron
Anton knows he is in a tiny minority as public opinion after 7 October hardens. Many Israelis are convinced, more than ever, that the peace camp is misguided.
“We can have reactions in my community, even in my friends’ circle, saying, why are you helping the enemy? Why are you not helping our people at this time?
“Or it can be, you know, more aggressive reactions when you come up against soldiers at a checkpoint to find out what you’re doing. And they can be quite aggressive.”
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But Anton hopes this type of direct action will provide the building blocks for greater cooperation and coexistence in the future.
“There’s a hardening and a radicalisation of attitudes in favour of the war… at the same time within Israeli society, you’re seeing a liminal moment, a moment where people don’t have the answers and feel deeply destabilised and insecure.
“And suddenly people are willing to think about and consider alternatives to military solutions.”
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The organisers load the boxes onto a truck. Each one is enough to feed a family for a week.
The journey from Ramallah to Hebron is not far but it is a circuitous route avoiding and getting stopped at checkpoints on the way to deliver the much-needed aid.
Along the route we pass Israeli watchtowers – the architecture of a military occupation which controls the lives of millions of Palestinians.
Finally, after more diversions and delays, the truck arrives and the cargo of aid is unloaded.
Hebron checkpoint
Food insecurity in the West Bank has increased as a result of the war in Gaza, Issa Amro tells me.
Issa is a Palestinian activist helping to provide relief to thousands of families. He says the desperation he sees now is unprecedented.
“It’s the first time I see people starving inside Hebron City and other parts of West Bank and for sure in Gaza.”
Issa Amro
From this depot in Hebron the boxes will be distributed across the city on foot. At the last checkpoint there’s another wait before the aid can pass.
Even a simple operation like this one to deliver much-needed small boxes of food is fraught with difficulties in the face of Israel’s unending military occupation.
A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.
An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.
They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.
Police at the scene. Pic: AP
Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.
A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.
Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.
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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.
Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
In mid-May, the World Health Organisation assessed that there were “nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.
“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” its report concluded.
Warning: This article contains images of an emaciated child which some readers may find distressing
Israel‘s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis.
But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza, and the United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items.
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“Strict quotas are being imposed on the goods we distribute, along with unnecessary delay procedures,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday.
“Essentials, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies, are prohibited. Nothing has reached the besieged north.”
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Baby Aya at Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza is dangerously thin
“Today, we receive between 300 to 500 cases daily, with approximately 10% requiring admission. This volume of inpatient cases far exceeds the capacity of Rantisi hospital, as the facility is not equipped to accommodate such large numbers,” Jall al Barawi, a doctor at the hospital, told us.
At least 94% of the hospitals have sustained some damage, some considerable, according to the UN.
Jall al Barawi, a doctor at Rantisi hospital
Paramedic crews are close to running out of fuel to drive ambulances.
The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions.
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Children are the worst affected.
Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin.
Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face. Her nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Aya’s nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Lethal spiral
Her mother Sundush, who is only 19 herself, cannot get enough food to produce breastmilk. Baby formula is scarce.
Aya, like so many other young children, cannot get the vital nutrition she needs to grow and develop.
It’s a lethal spiral.
This is what Aya looked like shortly after she was born
“My daughter was born at a normal weight, 3.5kg,” Sundush tells us.
“But as the war went on, her weight dropped significantly. I would breastfeed her, she’d get diarrhoea. I tried formula – same result. With the borders closed and no food coming in, I can’t eat enough to give her the nutrients she needs.”
“I brought her to the hospital for treatment, but the care she needs isn’t available.
“The doctor said her condition is very serious. I really don’t want to lose her, because I lost my husband and she’s all I have left of him. I don’t want to lose her.”
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Aya and her mother Sundush
Some of the aid entering Gaza now is being looted. It is hard to know whether that is by Hamas or desperate civilians. Maybe a combination of the two.
The lack of aid creates an atmosphere of desperation, which eventually leads to a breakdown in security as everyone fights to secure food for themselves and their families.
Only by alleviating the desperation can the security situation improve, and the risk of famine abate.
World
Police launch ‘major operation’ after 12 people injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station
Twelve people are reported to have been injured after a knife attack at Hamburg’s central train station.
A “major operation” has been launched and a suspect was arrested, police said in a post on X.
The identity of the suspect has not been revealed.
Reports in Germany said the suspected attacker was a woman.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
Bild newspaper said the motive for the attack was so far unknown.
Hamburg is Germany’s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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