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U.N. experts say Gaza children dying in Israeli “targeted starvation campaign”
Geneva — United Nations rights experts on Tuesday accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.
“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent United Nations experts said in a statement.
The U.N. has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip, but the experts, including U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, insisted there was no denying there were famine conditions in the Palestinian territory.
“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since 7 October, the majority being children,” said the experts, who were appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu/Getty
Their statement was immediately slammed by Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva, which charged that “Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined his statement, are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organization from scrutiny.”
Israel’s leaders and military commanders have consistently blamed all the human suffering in Gaza on the enclave’s long-time Hamas rulers, who sparked the ongoing war with their unprecedented Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. That attack saw the militants kill about 1,200 people and take some 240 others hostage.
Roughly 80 of those hostages are still believed to be alive, held captive in Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the goals of his country’s war with Hamas are to destroy the group and rescue the hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health says the war has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians in the densely populated coastal territory.
The U.N. experts listed three children who had recently died “from malnutrition” after a number of others were said to have starved to death in northern Gaza earlier this year.
“Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on 30 May 2024, and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah,” they said.
Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died just two days later “in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis,” they said.
“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they said.
The experts decried that the world had not done more to avert the disaster.
“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on 24 February and 4 March respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said. “The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths… Inaction is complicity.”
Gaza has faced a deep humanitarian crisis since the war erupted and the U.N. has been warning for months of a looming famine, especially in the north, but one has not been officially declared. A famine declaration does not carry any legal implications, but it can help to galvanize international support for an affected population.
The Israeli mission highlighted Tuesday that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership determined that famine had not materialized after aid access improved somewhat in Gaza.
“Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip,” it said, claiming Hamas “intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians.”
The U.S. government has pressed Israel for months to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, and the Biden administration tasked the military with building a floating pier on the territory’s Mediterranean coast in a bid to get more food and other vital supplies in.
The $230 million pier project has been dogged by logistical challenges and never managed to facilitate a significant amount of aid entering Gaza. It was always described by U.S. officials as an additive measure, with the acknowledgement that Gaza’s land borders, controlled by Israel, are the only way to get sufficient aid into the enclave.
Aid agencies have accused Israel of limiting the flow of aid into Gaza and creating bureaucratic hurdles to movement around the war-torn territory. Israel dismisses those allegations and says Hamas is the impediment to humanitarian work in Gaza.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.
A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego.
According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.
CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge.
Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.
Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.
The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.