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Hello,
Nearly five months into Israel’s air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip and resulting mass displacement of Palestinians, acute shortages of food have led to what the United Nations is describing as a nutrition crisis, part of a wider humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel stopped all imports of food, medicine, power and fuel into Gaza at the start of the war.
Although it later let in aid deliveries, aid organizations say security checks and the difficulty of moving through a war zone have greatly hindered their operations.
United Nations organizations have said that child malnutrition levels in northern Gaza were “particularly extreme” and about three times higher than in the south of the Palestinian enclave where more aid has been available.
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Palestinian boy Yazan Al-Kafarna, who had cerebral palsy and died later due to malnutrition, according to a Gaza doctor in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Yasser Qudih
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Aid delivery in the Palestinian enclave has collapsed, with only a fraction of the food needed getting in and very little reaching the northern areas where hospitals say children have started dying of malnutrition.
“When children are starting to die from starvation, that should be a warning like no other,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office.
“If not now, when is the time to pull the stops, break the glass, flood Gaza with the aid that it needs?”
Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said that one in six children under two were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza.
Click here for a Reuters factbox on the health crisis and displacement in Gaza.
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Aid sitting in warehouses
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Calls for Israel to do more to address the humanitarian crisis have grown louder since the deaths of Palestinians lining up for aid in Gaza last month.
Gaza health authorities said 118 people trying to reach a relief convoy were killed, attributing the deaths to Israeli fire and calling it a massacre. Israel, which says many people were trampled or run over, has pledged to investigate.
The U.S. military carried out its first air drop of food to Gazans on Saturday and plans more.
The air drop has been viewed as a latest sign that Washington is moving beyond diplomacy with Israel, which the U.N. and other relief agencies complain has blocked or restricted aid. Israel denies hindering humanitarian aid.
Despite hunger approaching catastrophic levels in parts of Gaza, and large quantities of aid sitting waiting in warehouses to be delivered, the flow of supplies has slowed to a trickle.
Before the conflict, Gaza relied on 500 trucks entering daily. The Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said that during February an average of nearly 97 trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, compared with about 150 a day in January.
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The United Nations has warned that widespread famine in the Gaza Strip is “almost inevitable” without action. A formal conclusion that famine has arrived in the coastal enclave of 2.3 million people could come next week.
“There is a risk of famine in the projection period through May 2024 if the current situation persists or worsens,” it said.
A famine is assessed by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). It is an initiative made up of more than a dozen U.N. agencies, regional bodies and aid groups.
For famine to be declared, at least 20% of the population must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease.
In late December, the IPC said the situation in Gaza had already exceeded the 20% threshold.
It said the remaining two thresholds – the number of children acutely malnourished and the number of people dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease – “may also be breached at some point” in the coming months.
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Sudanese refugee Fatma Ibrahim holds her twin babies Jana and Janat as they are treated for severe malnourishment. Kalma IDP camp in South Darfur, Sudan. Handout via REUTERS
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- Humanitarian crisis in Sudan: A mother who skips meals so there is enough food for her two children. A 60-year-old man who eats one meal a day – a lump of dough made of flour and water. Dozens of accounts like these gathered by Reuters show how many people are going hungry in parts of Sudan worst hit by the war that erupted last April, including areas in the capital Khartoum and in the western region of Darfur. Click here for the full Reuters report.
- Norway’s $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, will call on emerging market companies in which it invests to appoint more women to their boards, top officials told Reuters, making the policy global for the first time.
- Child labor lawsuit: A federal appeals court refused to hold five major technology companies liable over their alleged support for the use of child labor in cobalt mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- U.S. Climate rule: Wall Street’s top regulatory body voted to adopt a rule that would require public companies to disclose certain climate-related risks, a first-of-its-kind regulation that was watered down from an earlier draft. It drew a mixed response, with 10 Republican-led U.S. states vowing to sue the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission while the top U.S. business group also threatened to sue the agency. Click here for the full Reuters article.
- An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then “likely” opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident published on Thursday.
- U.S. banks leaving groups: Four of the biggest U.S. banks are no longer signatories to the Equator Principles, an industry benchmark for assessing environmental and social risks in project-related finance, its website showed.
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“Hungry, weakened and deeply traumatized children are more likely to get sick, and children who are sick, especially with diarrhea, cannot absorb nutrients well. It’s dangerous, and tragic, and happening before our eyes.”
Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme
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Homelessness crisis: Seven months into a crackdown by the city of San Diego on homeless encampments, many of the tents that once lined downtown sidewalks are gone.
Now two California state senators – a Republican and a Democrat – have joined forces to propose a statewide version of San Diego’s ordinance, which allows police to roust many homeless people even when shelter is unavailable.
But advocates for homeless people said the enforcement strategy has merely chased the homeless onto riverbanks and other unseen places, as the number of shelter beds still fails to meet demand. Click here for the full Reuters feature.
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Bondi Beach Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) Racing team trains on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. REUTERS/Alasdair Pal
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Today’s spotlight focuses on women life savers in Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Sprinting through the surf, veteran lifesaver Nixy Krite and her teammates jump into an inflatable rescue boat on a sunny morning on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach.
Krite and her team pilot the boat over the ocean before they scoop up a fellow teammate stranded at sea.
The maneuvers are part of a training session that Krite is holding for a new generation of women life savers, raising awareness of opportunities ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8.
Through training up new Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) members, she says she’s helping Australia “make up for lost time,” referring to the fact that Australian women were only allowed to become life savers as late as 1980.
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Today’s Sustainable Switch was edited by Tomasz Janowski
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