Archive July 16, 2025

One in every 10 children screened in clinics in Gaza run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is malnourished, as child hunger surges across the territory amid the continuing Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid.

Israel’s punishing prevention of aid entering Gaza has led to “severe shortages of nutrition supplies”, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday, describing the situation for starving children as “engineered and man-made”.

Lazzarini said the UN must be allowed to do its work in Gaza, particularly bringing in “humanitarian assistance at scale, including for children”.

“Any additional delay to a ceasefire will cause more deaths,” he said, noting that more than 870 starving Palestinians had been killed so far while trying to access food from the highly criticised distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the United States.

UNRWA’s communications director, Juliette Touma, told reporters in Geneva via a videolink from Amman, Jordan, that “medicine, nutrition supplies, hygiene material, fuel are all rapidly running out”.

“Our health teams are confirming that malnutrition rates are increasing in Gaza, especially since the siege was tightened more than four months ago on the second of March,” Touma said.

“One nurse that we spoke to told us that in the past, he only saw these cases of malnutrition in textbooks and documentaries,” she said.

“As malnutrition among children spreads across the war-torn enclave, UNRWA has over 6,000 trucks of food, hygiene supplies, medicine, medical supplies outside of Gaza. They are all waiting to go in,” Touma added.

“The world cannot continue to look away.”

“1 in 10 children screened by UNRWA in #Gaza is now malnourished,” UNRWA @JulietteTouma briefs the press at @UNGeneva.

Before the war, such cases were almost unheard of.

Now, Gaza’s shattered health system is overwhelmed — and aid is being blocked by the Government of Israel.… pic.twitter.com/3b8S2qONef

Since January 2024, UNRWA said it had screened more than 240,000 boys and girls under the age of five in its clinics, adding that before the war, acute malnutrition was rare in Gaza.

Andee Clark Vaughan, an emergency nurse with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA) based in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday how Israeli authorities had confiscated baby formula from medical workers entering the territory.

“Immune systems are so compromised here because of the malnutrition,” Vaughan said, describing how Palestinian mothers are so malnourished that they are unable to produce breast milk to feed their infants and forced to make difficult decisions to keep their children alive.

“What we’ve been seeing here is moms trying to do their utmost best, mixing water – which is often contaminated – with beans or lentils just to make something of sustenance to get these kids fed and get them nutrients,” Vaughan added.

On Monday, UNICEF said that last month, more than 5,800 children were diagnosed with malnutrition in Gaza, including more than 1,000 children with severe, acute malnutrition.

Police in Indonesia have arrested 12 people after uncovering a human trafficking ring that has sent more than a dozen babies to Singapore for adoption.

The West Java police told reporters on Tuesday that the case was discovered after a parent reported an alleged baby kidnapping, which led them to a suspect who admitted to trading 24 infants.

Surawan, the police’s director of general criminal investigation, who goes by one name, said the perpetrators took most of the infants from their biological parents in West Java province.

They are accused of moving the babies to Pontianak city on Borneo island and then sending more than a dozen of them onwards to Singapore.

“Based on documents, 14 [babies] were sent to Singapore,” he said.

“The age range is clearly under one year old, with some three months old, five months old, and six months old.”

Authorities managed to rescue five babies in Pontianak and one in Tangerang, a city near the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. They also arrested a dozen suspects across Jakarta, Pontianak and the Javan city of Bandung.

“They are a syndicate, a baby trafficking syndicate. They each have their own roles,” said Surawan.

Some of the suspects were allegedly tasked with finding the babies, he said, while others cared for them, sheltered them or prepared civil registration documents, such as family cards and passports.

The police officer added that the infants were to be sold for 11 million Indonesian Rupiah ($676) to 16 million Indonesian Rupiah ($983) to buyers for adoption in Singapore.

The syndicate had been in operation since 2023, he said, based on suspect statements.

Police said they sought out “parents or mothers who refuse to care for their children” in return for money.

Surawan said the parent who reported a kidnapping “actually had an agreement” with the smugglers before their child’s birth, but reported them when they did not receive payment afterwards.

He added that police in Indonesia intend to coordinate with Interpol to “locate possible trafficked infants in Singapore”.

Human trafficking is also a domestic problem across Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, a sprawling nation of more than 17,000 islands.

Israeli forces have launched air strikes on Suwayda in southern Syria, as fighting returned to the predominantly Druze city hours after the Syrian government declared a ceasefire.

The Syrian Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Tuesday that armed groups had resumed attacks on Syrian government forces with support from the Israeli Air Force.

Syria condemned Israel’s intervention as a violation of international law, while influential Druze Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri said in a statement that it was Syrian government troops who breached a truce announced earlier in the day.

The Israeli air attacks came after Hikmat al-Hajri urged local fighters to confront what he described as a barbaric attack from government forces.

Israel has claimed its attacks on the southern Syrian region bordering Israel are meant to protect the Druze minority, which it sees as potential allies.

In a statement shared on social media, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli said that Israel could not “stand idly by” as the Druze engaged in fighting.

“We see massacres and insults against the Druze, and we must fight against the terrorism regime in Syria,” Chikli said, claiming it was a “grave mistake” to acknowledge Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as the “legitimate leader” of the country.

Fighting between Bedouin tribes and local Druze fighters has reportedly killed more than 30 people and injured more than 100 since Sunday in Suwayda. Bedouin and Druze armed factions have a longstanding feud in Suwayda, with violence occasionally erupting.

United States envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Washington was in contact with all sides “to navigate towards calm and integration”.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reporting from Damascus said that the situation in Suwayda has “further escalated, with multiple Israeli drone and air strikes they claim are in support of Druze fighters”.

Syrian government declared ‘complete ceasefire’

The latest developments come hours after Syrian Minister of Defence Murhaf Abu Qasra declared a truce in a post on social media, saying: “To all units operating within the city of Suwayda, we declare a complete ceasefire.”

Abu Qasra’s announcement came shortly after the ministry deployed government forces to halt the fighting between Bedouin tribes and local fighters. The recent fighting was the first outbreak of deadly violence in the area since fighting between members of the Druze community and security forces killed dozens of people in April and May.

Syria’s Druze population numbers about 700,000, with Suwayda being home to the sect’s largest community. The Druze religious sect is a minority group that originated as a 10th-century offshoot of a branch of Shia Islam.

In Syria, the Druze primarily reside in the southern Suwayda province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south. Since the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, concerns have been raised over the rights and safety of minorities under the new authorities, who have also struggled to re-establish security more broadly.

In April, hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed in apparent retribution after fighting broke out between government forces and armed groups loyal to al-Assad, who belongs to the Alawite religious sect.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on neighbouring Syria since December 2024, averaging one every three to four days.

The latest attacks come as the Netanyahu government continues to wage war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 58,479 people since October 2023.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed support for the release of “credible” files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein amid outrage among his supporters over his administration’s handling of the case.

Trump said on Tuesday that US Attorney General Pam Bondi should disclose “whatever she thinks is credible” about the government’s investigations into Epstein as he sought to quash a growing backlash on the political right.

“She’s handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her,” Trump, who last week encouraged supporters to move on from the case, told reporters at the White House in Washington, DC.

“Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.”

Trump also claimed the so-called Epstein films were “made up” by former US Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and former FBI director James Comey, despite his administration’s role in publicising their existence.

Trump later on Tuesday repeated his support for the release of “credible” information, even as he expressed disbelief over the continuing fascination with the “sordid” but “boring” case.

“Credible information – let them give it,” he said. “I would say anything that’s credible, let them have it.”

Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has been up in arms since the release of a law enforcement memo last week that concluded that Epstein died by suicide and there was no credible evidence that he possessed a “client list” or blackmailed powerful figures.

Epstein, who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, has for years been the source of lurid theories and speculation, including that he was murdered and used sexual blackmail to compromise powerful figures on behalf of intelligence agencies.

Theorising about Epstein has been particularly frenzied in MAGA circles, which campaigned for Trump’s re-election in the belief he would expose the full extent of the late financier’s crimes and those of his elite connections.

Since the release of the joint US Department of Justice and FBI memo contradicting the most popular theories about Epstein, prominent MAGA followers have accused the Trump administration of breaking its promises and joining a cover-up aimed at protecting Epstein’s associates, possibly including the president himself.

“I want to make this very clear to those on the right, including the president himself, who are telling us to just drop the subject and move on,” conservative commentator Matt Walsh said on his podcast.

“We can’t drop it. We can’t move on.”

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, on Tuesday became the most powerful Trump ally yet to add to his voice to calls for greater transparency.