Palestinian Minister Accuses Israel of Starving Gazans

People search through the rubble of damaged buildings following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 12, 2023. (Reuters)
People search through the rubble of damaged buildings following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 12, 2023. (Reuters)
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Palestinian Minister Accuses Israel of Starving Gazans

People search through the rubble of damaged buildings following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 12, 2023. (Reuters)
People search through the rubble of damaged buildings following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 12, 2023. (Reuters)

The Palestinian foreign minister on Tuesday accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war against around 1 million Gazans, a charge an Israeli official rejected as "obscene".

The UN World Food Program says half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million is starving as the expansion of Israel's military assault into the southern part of the Gaza Strip, in response to October's bloody cross-border rampage by Hamas militants, has cut people off from food, medicine and fuel.

Israel has said it allows aid into Gaza via the Rafah crossing and has signaled that the Kerem Shalom crossing could soon reopen to help process aid deliveries.

"As we speak, at least 1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, half of them children, are starving, not because of a natural disaster or because of lack of generous assistance waiting at the border," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told a UN event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"No, they are starving because of Israel's deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied".

In response, an Israeli official told Reuters in Jerusalem: "This is, of course, obscene ... (a) blood-libelous, delusional level of allegations."

Israel was encouraging increased shipments of food into Gaza from Egypt, which also borders the Palestinian enclave, the official added, blaming lags on a "bottle neck" at that border.

In Geneva, Al-Maliki said: "We are living through this dystopian reality that excludes Palestinians from the basic, most basic rights afforded to all human beings".

He described this as an "utter international failure" to protect Palestinians.

Israel says its instructions to people to move to areas it says are safer are among measures it is taking to protect civilians as it tries to root out Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage in its Oct. 7 attack.

In remarks to reporters, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Meirav Eilon Shahar, criticized al-Maliki's address for making no mention Hamas and its deadly attacks on Israel.

"Nothing about Oct. 7, nothing about the atrocities that were committed by Hamas," she said, speaking alongside the mother of US-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg Polin.

Israel's retaliatory assault has killed at least 18,205 people and wounded nearly 50,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, which says many thousands more dead are uncounted under the rubble or beyond the reach of ambulances. (Reporting by



Iraqi Oil Minister: Kurdistan Region's Oil Exports to Resume Next Week

A view shows the al-Shuaiba oil refinery in southwest Basra, Iraq April 20, 2017. Reuters
A view shows the al-Shuaiba oil refinery in southwest Basra, Iraq April 20, 2017. Reuters
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Iraqi Oil Minister: Kurdistan Region's Oil Exports to Resume Next Week

A view shows the al-Shuaiba oil refinery in southwest Basra, Iraq April 20, 2017. Reuters
A view shows the al-Shuaiba oil refinery in southwest Basra, Iraq April 20, 2017. Reuters

Oil exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region will resume next week, Iraq's oil minister said on Monday, resolving a near two-year dispute as ties between Baghdad and Erbil improve.
The oil flows were halted by Türkiye in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized pipeline exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.

"Tomorrow, a delegation from the Ministry of Oil... will visit the Kurdish region to negotiate the mechanism for receiving oil from the region and exporting it. The export process will resume within a week," Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani told reporters.

According to Reuters, he added that Baghdad would receive 300,000 barrels per day from the region.

Erbil-based Rudaw TV earlier cited Kurdistan's natural resources minister, Kamal Mohammed, as saying oil exports could resume before March as all legal procedures have been completed.

The Iraqi parliament approved a budget amendment this month to subsidize production costs for international oil companies operating in Kurdistan, a move aimed at unblocking northern oil exports.

The resumption is expected to ease economic pressure in the Kurdistan region, where the halt has led to salary delays for public sector workers and cuts to essential services.