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israel defense forces
5,800+ Gaza Children Diagnosed With Malnutrition in June: UNICEF
"Children's bodies are wasting away," the agency said. "This is not just a nutrition crisis. It's a child survival emergency."
Jul 14, 2025
More than 5,800 children in the Gaza Strip were diagnosed with malnutrition in June alone amid Israel's ongoing U.S.-backed siege and annihilation of the Palestinian territory, the United Nations Children's Fund said Sunday.
According to the UNICEF, at least 5,870 malnourished children in Gaza were hospitalized last month for urgent treatment, including more than 1,000 cases of severe malnutrition, the most lethal form of the ailment. Malnutrition diagnoses have increased in Gaza over each of the past four months. In May, 5,119 children between 6 months and 5 years of age suffering acute malnutrition were admitted for treatment in Gaza, as Common Dreams reported.
"Child malnutrition in Gaza is rising fast," the agency warned in a statement. "Children's bodies are wasting away. This is not just a nutrition crisis. It's a child survival emergency."
Gaza medical officials said late last month that more than 300 Palestinians—including many children and elders—had recently died from malnutrition and lack of medical care due to Israel's siege and bombing. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 67 children have died of starvation since October 2023, when Israeli forces began obliterating the enclave in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
In addition to blocking food and other humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, Israel Defense Forces troops have killed more than 800 people at or near food distribution points run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. IDF officers and soldiers say they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of desperate aid-seekers.
In recent days, Israeli forces have also massacred children and others queued up for malnutrition treatment at an international charity clinic in Deir al-Balah and waiting for water in the al-Nuseirat refugee camp. The IDF attributed the latter attack to a "technical error."
More than 310 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East staffers have also been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza onslaught.
Israel's forced starvation of Gaza has been condemned by numerous national governments, progressive members of U.S. Congress, international human rights groups, and United Nations experts, who have called the policy genocidal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Israel's policies and practices in Gaza are also the subject of a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice, which has ordered tIsrael to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid into the strip. Israel has been accused of ignoring these orders. Israeli leaders including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have called for the bombing of Gaza humanitarian aid depots and IDF soldiers—who purportedly fight for the "word's most moral army"—have posted videos on social media celebrating or mocking the starvation of Palestinians.
Since October 2023, at least 58,386 Palestinians have been killed and more than 139,000 wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures have been found to be accurate or an undercount by peer-reviewed studies. At least 14,000 people are also missing. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
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In Act of 'Brutal Sadism,' Israel Bans Gazans From Entering Sea Under Pain of Death
"This is not about security," said the head of Gaza's fishers' union. "It's economic, social, and psychological warfare, a weapon of slow, deliberate suffocation."
Jul 14, 2025
Israel has warned Gazans to stay out of the Mediterranean Sea or risk getting killed under wartime restrictions that critics say serve no security purpose and are meant to deprive Palestinians of a key source of sustenance—and respite from the horrific realities of 21 months of constant death and destruction.
"Strict security restrictions have been imposed in the maritime area adjacent to Gaza—entry to the sea is prohibited," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic language spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on the social media site X Saturday. "This is a call to fishermen, swimmers, and divers—refrain from entering the sea. Entering the beach and waters along the entire Gaza Strip endangers your lives."
While Israel has imposed a maritime blockade on Gaza since 2007 following Hamas' victory in legislative elections and subsequent takeover of the coastal enclave, restrictions were tightened after the October 7, 2023 attack as part of the "complete siege" that has caused deadly malnutrition throughout the strip, where Israel's 646-day U.S.-backed onslaught has left more than 211,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
However, the IDF appears to have not enforced the post-October 7 ban on entering the sea against swimmers and bathers. Only Palestinian fishers have been targeted, with more than 210 killed since October 2023, according to United Nations data.
"We live off the sea. If there's no fishing, we don't eat," Munthir Ayash, a 52-year-old fisher from Gaza City, told the Emirati newspaper The National Monday. "Me, my five sons, and their families—45 people in total—depend entirely on the sea. With it closed, we face starvation."
It is unclear why the IDF issued Saturday's warning, which came amid excessive heat warnings as temperatures rose to over 30°C (86°F). With Gaza's infrastructure obliterated by 21 months of Israeli onslaught and safe running water in severe shortage, the Mediterranean Sea provided a place to cool off and clean up.
"I used to go every day. The sea was where I bathed, where I relaxed, where I ran from the horror of war," Ibrahim Dawla, a 26-year-old Palestinian man forcibly displaced from Gaza City's Zaytun, told The National. "Now even that's gone."
Rajaa Qudeih, a 31-year-old mother of two from Deir al-Balah, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Sunday: "I'm literally dizzy from hunger, thirst, and the heat. Gaza is going through the worst famine, we haven't eaten, and we can't even find a piece of bread."
"The sea was the only outlet left. If they kill us for going there, maybe that would be easier than this slow death," she continued. "Still, I fear for my children. My oldest is 9. How can I convince him that swimming in the sea could get him killed?"
"We are camped by the sea," Qudeih added. "Where else can we go? Are they going to ban the air from us next?"
The IDF claims the maritime blockade is a security measure aimed at preventing weapons from being smuggled into Gaza.
However, Zakaria Bakr, head of the Palestinian Fishermen's Syndicate in Gaza, and many other residents of the embattled enclave believe there is another reason why Israel is prohibiting them from entering the sea.
"This is not about security. It's economic, social, and psychological warfare; a weapon of slow, deliberate suffocation," he told The National.
Dawla said that "people here die a million times every hour; we needed the sea just to feel human again, even if only for a few minutes. And they knew that. That's why they shut it down."
"We called it our last breathing space. We knew it was dangerous, but it was the only place we had left," he added. Now, "I haven't gone for two days. None of my friends have either. We're all afraid we'll be shot just for standing there."
Ayash said of Israel: "They want to take everything. They want to erase us."
"But the sea is ours," he added. "The land is ours. No matter how hard they try, it will stay ours."
Palestine defenders around the world also condemned the IDF policy.
"There can be no possible military or security reason for banning the people of Gaza from entering the sea—except to satisfy the brutal sadism of the IDF," argued Australian journalist and commentator Mike Carlton.
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Israeli Settlers Beat American to Death in Illegally Occupied West Bank: Family, Health Ministry
"If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration," said one U.S. group.
Jul 11, 2025
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health and cousins of Sayfollah Musallet—also known as Saif al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat—said Friday that Israeli settlers beat the dual U.S.-Palestinian citizen to death while he was visiting family in the illegally occupied West Bank.
A spokesperson for the ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told Agence France-Press that 23-year-old Musallet "died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon."
Abdul Samad Abdul Aziz, from the nearby village of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya, said that "the young man was injured and remained so for four hours. The [Israeli] army prevented us from reaching him and did not allow us to take him away."
"When we finally managed to reach him, he was taking his last breath," he added.
The Times of Israel reported that the "ministry later said a second man, 23-year-old Mohammad Shalabi, was fatally shot by settlers," and "there have been no arrests yet."
According to the Tel Aviv-based newspaper Haaretz, "The Israeli army said it was 'aware of reports' of the incident and that it was 'being looked into by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police.'"
Zeteo's Prem Thakker spoke with two of Musallet's cousins, Fatmah Muhammad and another granted anonymity due to safety concerns. They said that he grew up in Port Charlotte, Florida, and arrived in June to visit family in the Palestinian town of al-Mazra'a ash-Sharqiya.
As Thakker detailed:
Muhammad described Musallet as "one of those kids that everyone loves" with a "beautiful heart," a "sweet, gentle kid, very genuine," everyone attests as funny and bright.
In Florida, he helped run a family ice cream shop, a place where his personality shone through, his family members said.
Muhammad and the other family source said that the entire Palestinian town where the family is from is devastated.
"There's no justice there. You can't call the police. You can't call the Israeli government. The murderers just get to walk away," Muhammad said.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces have killed over 57,800 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip—which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). During that time, IDF soldiers and Israeli settlers' sometimes deadly violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also surged.
Additionally, despite the ICJ's July 2024 finding that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible, and Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to unlawful annexation, there are growing calls in Israel's government to formally annex the West Bank.
Musallet's death came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court accused of continuing the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza to stay in power—returned to Israel after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. this week.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, said in a Friday statement that "we strongly condemn these racist Israeli settlers, backed and enabled by the Netanyahu government, for beating an American citizen to death in the occupied West Bank."
"This murder is only the latest killing of an American citizen by illegal Israeli settlers or soldiers," he noted. "Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians. If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration."
According to Thakker: "Musallet is at least the seventh American killed in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon since October 7, 2023, including six killed by Israeli forces. Earlier this week, Zeteo asked several Republican senators if they knew how many Americans had been killed by Israel in the last 21 months. None of them could answer."
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