A state of famine in Gaza, if not already present, is imminent. The government of Israel is deliberately starving to death an entire population of two million people by limiting the amount of food aid to well below the levels necessary to maintain even basic levels of nutrition. The soldiers at the checkpoints for trucks to gain entry into Gaza delay the trucks for inordinate lengths of time and often turn them back for the most trivial of reasons, such as having scissors in medical kits, absurdly claiming that these could be used as weapons. A “clear pattern has emerged” of Israeli obstruction of aid trucks, which suggests that deliberately creating famine conditions is now official policy.

Humanitarian workers and government officials working to deliver urgently needed aid for Gaza say a clear pattern has emerged of Israeli obstruction, as disease and near-famine grip parts of the besieged enclave.
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CNN has also reviewed documents compiled by major participants in the humanitarian operation that list the items most frequently rejected by the Israelis. These include anesthetics and anesthesia machines, oxygen cylinders, ventilators and water filtration systems.

Other items that have ended up in bureaucratic limbo include dates, sleeping bags, medicines to treat cancer, water purification tablets and maternity kits.

Israeli troops have also opened fire on desperate Gazans who struggle to access the meager supplies that do get in, killing many of them. Doctors treating injured people in Gaza say that Israeli snipers have targeted children.

Dr Fozia Alvi was making her rounds of the intensive care unit on her final day at the battered European public hospital in southern Gaza when she stopped next to two young arrivals with facial injuries and breathing tubes in their windpipes.

“I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old,” she said.

The Canadian doctor’s heart sank. These were not the first children treated by Alvi who she was told were targeted by Israeli soldiers, and she knew the damage a single high-calibre bullet could do to a fragile young body.

“They were not able to talk, paraplegic. They were literally lying down as vegetables on those beds. They were not the only ones. I saw even small children with direct sniper shot wounds to the head as well as in the chest. They were not combatants, they were small children,” said Alvi.

Children account for more than one in three of the more than 32,000 people killed in Israel’s months-long assault on Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Tens of thousands more young people have suffered severe injuries, including amputations.

Attempts to send in aid by ships were halted when Israeli airstrikes of food trucks killed seven aid workers who had just brought in supplies by sea.

Some of Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, on Tuesday condemned the deaths of seven aid workers who were killed by airstrikes in Gaza — a loss that prompted multiple charities to suspend food deliveries to Palestinians on the brink of starvation.

The deaths of the World Central Kitchen workers threatened to set back efforts by the U.S. and other countries to open a maritime corridor for aid from Cyprus to help ease the desperate conditions in northern Gaza.
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Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid from the charitable group turned back from Gaza just a day after arriving, according to Cyprus. Other humanitarian aid organizations also suspended operations in Gaza, saying it was too dangerous to offer help. Israel has allowed only a trickle of food and supplies into Gaza’s devastated north, where experts say famine is imminent.

The dead from Monday night’s strikes included three British citizens, Polish and Australia nationals, a Canadian-American dual national and a Palestinian. Those countries have been key backers of Israel’s nearly 6-month-old offensive in Gaza, and several of them denounced the killings.

The BBC Verify team has collected detailed evidence of the attack on the food convoy.

Joe Biden has issued ‘blunt criticism’ of Israel but he and other western leaders like the UK’s Rishi Sunak are being utterly hypocritical, using words to try and assuage the worldwide anger at their complicity in the ongoing genocide, while refusing to do the one thing that could stop Israel’s murderous terror campaign and that is to stop weapons shipments. In fact, while expressing opposition to Israel using US made bombs to devastate Gaza, Biden just quietly approved the sale of the the same kinds of bombs that Israel has used on hospitals and other civilian targets.

Any sense that a US abstention on a UN ceasefire resolution signalled a radically different approach to the Gaza war by the Biden administration lasted only four days.

The UN security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, a hostage release and large-scale delivery of food aid, was passed last Monday. By Friday, the Washington Post was reporting on the latest consignment of billions of dollars worth of US bombs and planes for Israel.

The only hesitation, according to a source familiar with the procedure, was a delay of a few days in processing approval of 1,800 MK-84 2,000lb (907kg) bombs, which can flatten an apartment block and leave an 11-metre deep crater.

It is a devastating weapon that has reportedly been used frequently by the Israeli air force, playing a significant role in the estimated 33,000 death toll in Gaza since October.

As if that were not bad enough, he is supposed to be ‘considering’ (this is White House language for a decision that has already been made but is waiting for the best time to announce it) yet another major arms shipment to enable Israel to further terrorize an already devastated people.

The U.S. government is considering major new weapons sales to Israel of fighter jets, air-to-air missiles and guidance kits, as calls grow for the U.S. to withhold arms if Israel won’t do more to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.

The Biden administration is weighing selling Israel up to 50 new F-15 fighter jets, 30 AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, and a number of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which turn dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons, according to a congressional aide and a person familiar with the discussions. The people were granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.

There has been a significant protest vote against Biden in the primaries, suggesting deep anger at the lack of any serious pressure by the US on Israel to stop the slaughter of Gazans. The US is the only country that can do anything but for decades it has been condoning, if not actually defending, all the ways in which Israel has been depriving Palestinians of their land and their basic rights. The blood of Gazans is on US hands as well as that of Israelis.