杏MAP导航

By Nathan Morley 

On Tuesday, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry announced that at least 33 people, including 12 children, have died from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip over the past 48 hours.

The deaths come amid warnings from UN Secretary-General António Guterres that Gaza's remaining humanitarian lifelines are rapidly collapsing under the weight of Israel’s ongoing military offensive.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the scenes emerging from Gaza as “grotesque” and said he was “sickened” by reports of mass casualties. 

On Monday, Lammy joined 27 other nations in condemning what they called the “horrifying” killing of hundreds of Palestinians while attempting to access food from Israeli aid distributions.

The World Health Organization reported that its operations in central Gaza have been severely compromised following Israeli ground advances and damage to its facilities. 

Israel said its forces came under fire in Deir al-Balah and were coordinating with international agencies in the area.

Hospitals across Gaza may cease functioning within 48 hours due to fuel shortages, the health ministry warned. Six clinics have already shut down, and officials accused Israel of blocking fuel deliveries intended for medical use.

International condemnation 

Amid growing international concern, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference reaffirmed its support for South Africa’s legal case against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. 

The statement, issued after an airstrike hit the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza - killing three and injuring at least nine - asserted that Israel's military response to Hamas’s October 2023 attack is “widely recognized throughout the world as genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

“We share that assessment,” the bishops wrote in the statement signed by Cardinal Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Cape Town. They expressed disappointment that South Africa’s ICJ case had not curbed the violence and condemned arms suppliers as complicit in what “history will undoubtedly record as a crime against humanity.”