Jerusalem, Undefined – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday for help aiding hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos showing two of them emaciated.
In response, Hamas’s armed wing said it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip”.
The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.
Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.
The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.
Netanyahu “told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing”, the statement added.
Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to call on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.
There was particular outrage in Israel over images of David, who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave.
The videos make references to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding”.
An emergency session on the “dire situation of the hostages” will be convened by the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Israel’s UN ambassador said Sunday in a post on X.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images “are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas”, calling for the release of “all hostages… immediately and unconditionally”.
‘No special food privileges’
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said Sunday that Israeli hostages would not receive any “special privileges” in the food they are given compared to the rest of the Gazan population.
ICRC access only if aid corridors opened
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said Sunday that it would only allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide aid to Israeli hostages on the condition that humanitarian corridors are opened to Gaza.
‘Hamas must disarm’
Kallas said in the same post on X that “Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza” — demands endorsed earlier this week by Arab countries, including key mediators Qatar and Egypt.
She added that “large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need”.
Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.
Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians who were waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near the southern city of Rafah.
“The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there, no one posed any threat” to the Israeli forces, 31-year-old witness Jabr al-Shaer told AFP by phone.
There was no comment from the military.
Five more people were killed near a different GHF aid site in central Gaza on Sunday, while Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another five people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
‘Emaciated and desperate’
Braslavski and David are among the 49 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack who are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack were released during two short-lived truces, some in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of a strike” in that area.
Media restrictions and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by various parties.
Dire water shortages compound hunger in Gaza
Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory’s residents.
Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient.
Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn’t flowing.
Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed.
Gaza City spokesman Assem al-Nabih told AFP that the municipality’s part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks.
Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict.
Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders.
At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza’s power as part of its war effort.
Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries.
Lastly, Gaza’s desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.
Sewage floods
Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak.
More than 75 percent of wells are out of service, 85 percent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable.
Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tons of rubbish is clogging the streets.
“Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure,” says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia.
In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.
But coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.
In 2021, the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.
With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.
Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer.
Spreading diseases
Though Gaza’s water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly.
“Just like food, water should never be used for political ends,” UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said.
She told AFP that, while it’s very difficult to quantify the water shortage, “there is a severe lack of drinking water”.
“It’s extremely hot, diseases are spreading and water is truly the issue we’re not talking about enough,” she added.
Opportunities to get clean water are as dangerous as they are rare.
On July 13, as a crowd had gathered around a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, at least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
A United Arab Emirates-led project authorised by Israel is expected to bring a 6.7-kilometre pipeline from an Egyptian desalination plant to the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, in Gaza’s south.
The project is controversial within the humanitarian community, because some see it as a way of justifying the concentration of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza.
‘Fear and helplessness’
On July 24, a committee representing Gaza’s prominent families issued a cry for help, calling for “the immediate provision of water and humanitarian aid, the rapid repair of infrastructure, and a guarantee for the entry of fuel”.
Gaza aid workers that AFP spoke to stressed that there was no survival without drinking water, and no disease prevention without sanitation.
“The lack of access, the general deterioration of the situation in an already fragile environment — at the very least, the challenges are multiplying,” a diplomatic source working on these issues told AFP.
Mahmoud Deeb, 35, acknowledged that the water he finds in Gaza City is often undrinkable, but his family has no alternative.
“We know it’s polluted, but what can we do? I used to go to water distribution points carrying heavy jugs on my back, but even those places were bombed,” he added.
At home, everyone is thirsty — a sensation he associated with “fear and helplessness.”
“You become unable to think or cope with anything.”
