Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Gaza on Monday killed at least 15 people, including three journalists, one of whom worked for Reuters, Palestinian health officials said.
Cameraman Hussam al-Masri, one of the journalists killed in the strikes, according to the officials, was a contractor for Reuters. Photographer Hatem Khaled, who was also a Reuters contractor, was wounded, the officials said.
The latest attack comes just days after the United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza, marking the first time such a declaration has been made in the Middle East. Experts warned that 500,000 people are facing “catastrophic” hunger.
ALSO READ: UN declares famine in Gaza, first ever in Middle East
“It is a famine: the Gaza famine,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator. He blamed Israel, accusing it of “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Israel rejected the assessment, with its foreign ministry stating that the declaration that famine is now present in and around Gaza City was “based on Hamas lies laundered through organisations with vested interests”. “There is no famine in Gaza,” it insisted.
The assessment was made by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC), a coalition of monitors mandated by the UN to provide early warnings of food crises.
The IPC defines famine as occurring when 20 per cent of households face extreme food shortages, 30 per cent of children under five suffer acute malnutrition, and at least two in every 10,000 people die daily from starvation or related diseases.
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