GENEVA: The population of the Gaza Strip faces an increasing risk of famine as the Israel-Hamas war drags on, the UN’s World Food Programme warned Tuesday.
“The situation in Gaza is of course slipping every day into a much more catastrophic situation,” with “a looming threat of famine,” Abeer Etefa, the WFP’s senior Middle East spokeswoman told a press briefing.
A study conducted between November 24 and December 7 found that all 2.2 million people in the Palestinian territory were in a crisis level of food insecurity.
SANAA, Yemen: Houthi rebels claimed Monday they had hit a US military cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, but the United States denied an attack had taken place.
The Iran-backed rebel group “led a military operation targeting the American military cargo ship Ocean Jazz in the Gulf of Aden,” near the Red Sea, with missiles, said Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree.
Asked about the claim, a US defense official told AFP: “We’re not seeing that at all on our end and believe that statement to be untrue.”
GAZA: The Israeli army said Tuesday that 21 soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip in the deadliest attack on its forces of the 3-month-old war against the militant Hamas group.
The reservists were preparing explosives to demolish two buildings in central Gaza on Monday when a militant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a tank nearby, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesperson, said. The blast triggered the explosives, causing both two-story buildings to collapse on the soldiers inside.