Gaza stands on the brink of a catastrophe, with its hospitals overwhelmed by an unprecedented influx of starving civilians, as the Israeli blockade continues to choke off essential food and medical supplies.
Emergency rooms in Gaza's medical centers are receiving people of all ages showing signs of acute malnutrition, a health ministry statement said on Saturday, warning that hundreds are at risk of death due to severe emaciation and prolonged lack of food.
“We are running out of everything: IV fluids, antibiotics, beds. We can barely treat the injured, let alone the starving,” a medical source at a central Gaza hospital told Al Manassa.
The doctor urged international organizations and foreign governments to pressure Israel into allowing large-scale deliveries of food and medical aid immediately.
The dire current escalation began on March 18, when Israel resumed its military campaign on Gaza. The assault follows a broken cease-fire deal, brokered in January, that was due to end with the exchange of captives and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Since then, Israel has kept border crossings shut, denying entry to humanitarian convoys, creating what rights groups call a “man-made famine,” with families surviving on animal feed or enduring days without eating.
Seeking desperately to find food, five Palestinian fishermen set out less than half a nautical mile from Gaza’s western coast on Saturday in small, hand-powered boats. Their perilous quest was brutally interrupted by Israeli occupation forces, which swiftly attacked and arrested them, deploying four warships against their small vessels, according to a journalist who spoke to Al Manassa.
It remains unclear whether the fishermen sustained injuries before their arrest. The detainees included two members of the Habil family and three from the Saadallah family, among them two brothers.
These arrests occurred just as Israeli authorities recently renewed a sweeping ban on all fishing, swimming, and diving along Gaza’s coast on July 12.
Meanwhile, the violence against Palestinians across the Strip has been relentless. In the past 24 hours alone, Israeli attacks have killed at least 131 Palestinians—including dozens in displacement camps and aid distribution points—according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.
Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis confirmed receiving 63 bodies, half of whom were killed in an Israeli strike near a GHF aid distribution site. Others died in an Israeli shelling of at least six tents sheltering displaced people.
According to a journalist on the scene who spoke to Al Manassa, Saturday’s strikes primarily targeted tents in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis.
In the town of Al-Zawaida, Israeli occupation forces struck a family home without warning, killing 11 members of the Aql family, according to an eyewitness.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, civil defense sources reported at least 53 fatalities across more than 15 separate strikes. “Many bodies are still under the rubble. The bombardment is too intense, and our resources too limited,” a civil defense official told Al Manassa.
“We received calls for help from neighborhoods flattened in the strikes, but we simply couldn’t reach them.”
A US-funded charity, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), began distributing relief packages in May, following months of a total Israeli aid blockade. However, both Rafah and central Gaza distribution points have since come under repeated Israeli attacks.
Hamas has condemned these sites as “calculated death traps,” accusing Israel of deliberately targeting locations where desperate civilians gather in search of food.
Additionally, a former GHF security contractor recently told the BBC he witnessed colleagues deliberately opening fire on hungry, unarmed Palestinians at the designated aid distribution sites; claims the organization has vehemently denied.
Despite the escalating human toll, cease-fire efforts remain ongoing. Mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and the US engaged in talks for over 11 days, outlining a proposed 60-day halt to hostilities.
Yet, no breakthrough has been reached, leaving Gaza’s population trapped in an unyielding cycle of violence and deprivation.
