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Washington
Analysis | Israel’s war on Hamas brings famine to Gaza
Those warnings reached a crescendo Monday with the release of new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global multi-stakeholder initiative working on food security and nutrition analysis. It found that 1.1 million people in Gaza — roughly half the beleaguered territory’s population — are expected to face catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation between now and July. Many of those at immediate risk live in Gaza’s devastated northern regions, which are cut off from the south by Israeli forces and receive only a paltry trickle of the already-meagre aid that’s entering Gaza.
The fact of a “famine” is tied up in a complicated set of bureaucratic criteria, as my colleague Andrew Jeong outlined. It is usually declared by governments, though some U.N. officials have done so in contexts where no prevailing governing entity was capable of formally assessing the situation. The IPC uses a five-tiered classification system where “famine” is the fifth tier and “emergency” the fourth.
“Compared to the IPC’s previous analysis in December 2023, acute food insecurity in the Gaza Strip has deepened and widened, with nearly double the number of people projected to experience those conditions by July,” my colleagues reported. “In the IPC’s five-tier classification of food crises, Gaza now has the largest percentage of a population to receive its most severe rating since the body began reporting in 2004, Beth Bechdol, deputy director general at the Food and Agriculture Organization, told The Washington Post.”
What makes this calamity all the more stunning is that it’s entirely the product of human decisions: Gaza’s civilian population is starving because of an Israeli siege, not an earthquake, extended drought or other natural disasters that have blighted parts of the world subject to famine. That reality is agonizing for U.N. officials.
“We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” Catherine Russell, head of the U.N.’s children agency, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program Sunday. “I’ve been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies … don’t even have the energy to cry.”
“This is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system — anywhere, anytime,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a news briefing Monday. “This is an entirely man-made disaster — and the report makes clear that it can be halted.”
Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official, said more than 1 million people are at risk because they have been cut off from aid, markets have been collapsed and fields destroyed. “The international community should hang its head in shame for failing to stop this.”
Israeli officials, chiefly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appear unmoved by the state of affairs. They blame Hamas for bringing about this crisis and reject growing calls for a cease-fire, which now include prominent Democratic lawmakers in Washington. “In the international community, there are those who are trying to stop the war now, before all of its goals have been achieved,” Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN over the weekend. “If we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, this means that Israel will have lost the war, and this we will not allow.”
On Monday, international humanitarian organization Oxfam released a report outlining how Israel has stymied or constrained the delivery of aid, including attacks on humanitarian convoys, “unjustifiably inefficient” processes of inspection of the relief supplies, and denial of access to humanitarian officials and aid groups.
Israel has been using “starvation as a weapon of war,” for more than five months, Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa regional director, said in a statement. She said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has “actually worsened” since the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to enable more aid into the enclave. “Israel’s deliberate manufacturing of suffering is systemic and of such scale and intensity that it creates a real risk of a genocide in Gaza,” she said.
That’s rhetoric that mainstream politicians are also echoing. “In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine; we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said Monday at the start of a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels. “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war.”
But respite is not in sight, with Israel and Hamas still at loggerheads over the possibility of a cease-fire brokered through U.S. and Arab mediators.
“For nearly a month, the news coverage has been about efforts being made toward a truce,” Atef Abu Saif, a Gaza-born novelist and the Palestinian Authority’s minister of culture, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post that detailed his mother’s death in a tent in Gaza. “Just a temporary truce! After so many weeks of such modest hopes, ‘truce’ has become everyone’s favorite word: a cherished, idealistic, holy concept. It’s such a meager thing to hope for — a few days without killing. But even this feels out of reach.”
Beirut, Lebanon – On Tuesday, representatives from Lebanon and Israel met at the US Department of State in Washington, DC – the first session of a two-day round of negotiations that Lebanese negotiators hope will end an invasion of their country.
The negotiations, which started at 9am local time (13:00 GMT), come as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon pushes deeper than at any point since the year 2000 and as Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade attacks. Israel has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
With the war raging on, what do Lebanon and Israel have to discuss and will the talks lead to an end of the Israeli assault?
Here’s everything you need to know.
What will Israel and Lebanon discuss?
Similar to past meetings, the two sides are ostensibly looking to come to some kind of deal following fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with strong doubts it will be achieved.
Lebanon’s government is still pushing for a total ceasefire. However, as talks started, Israel was striking various parts of southern Lebanon. Lebanon is also trying to get Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory in the south, so that more than 1.2 million displaced people can return home, and so the state can resume finding a way to disarm Hezbollah and rebuild areas devastated by Israeli attacks.
Israel is meanwhile looking to get assurances that Lebanon will disarm Hezbollah, a prospect analysts say Israel knows is complicated by the continuation of its military operations and occupation of swaths of southern Lebanon. Instead, Israel appears to be trying to fuel sectarian tensions inside Lebanon, leading to chaos and internal strife.
What has happened so far?
An initial meeting took place in April between Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the United States. A second round took place in May with a larger delegation on both sides.
On Friday, a meeting took place with Lebanese and Israeli military representatives, while Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese group, is not involved in the meetings.
Israel claimed the two sides found common ground in that they both wanted to see Hezbollah disarmed. Some Israeli officials suggested there may soon be trade agreements and an exchange of tourists between the two countries. Lebanon, however, said it preferred to find a deal closer to the 1949 armistice agreement between the two countries.
In the last meeting, Beirut reportedly outlined the damage done by Israeli attacks since the 2024 ceasefire agreement and presented detailed maps showing homes destroyed or razed by Israel.
Is there a chance for a ceasefire?
That remains to be seen, but for now, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s military would continue attacking Lebanon.
On Monday, Netanyahu announced that attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs would resume, despite a ceasefire. Apart from two targeted attacks, Israel has not struck the suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, since April.
Iran, which has attempted to include Lebanon in a wider ceasefire between themselves, on one side, and Israel and the US on the other, then intervened by threatening to attack northern Israel.
US President Donald Trump reportedly intervened to stop Israel’s attacks. He announced another ceasefire, after his previous announcement of one between Israel and Lebanon on April 16, after claiming he had gotten the approval of Netanyahu and spoken to Hezbollah.
“There will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back,” Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social.
But attacks from Israel and Hezbollah are continuing.
How do Lebanese people feel about the talks?
Not everyone is on the same page.
Some Lebanese support the talks and say they are the only option the state, which has little leverage, has. Among those who believe direct talks are the best way forward are Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
“There is no option other than negotiation,” Aoun said in a statement on Tuesday.
Others, however, oppose direct talks. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and his allies, Hezbollah, have said indirect talks are preferred and that negotiations cannot be conducted while attacks are ongoing.
How are Iran and the US connected?
Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28, killing the country’s longtime leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran is Hezbollah’s primary benefactor, and two days after Khamenei’s assassination, Hezbollah fired six rockets towards Israel on 2 March.
Hezbollah’s response brought a huge response from Israel, who have crossed the Litani River – the supposed buzzer zone in southern Lebanon it had created – towards the Zahrani River.
Despite a 2024 ceasefire, Israel had never stopped attacking Lebanon, while Hezbollah had only responded once in December 2024.
Iran has attempted to include Lebanon in the ceasefire deal it has with the United States and Israel, who say this theatre is not part of the agreement.
Although Trump has now announced a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel twice, the invasion of southern Lebanon continues.
Are there other actors involved?
Gulf states have also intervened. Saudi Arabia has been working behind the scenes to get Lebanon’s leadership – Aoun, Salam and Berri – on the same page. Meanwhile, analysts say Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged the Trump administration to stop an escalation in Lebanon.
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11
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8-6-0
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05-09-10-15-21-26
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02-07-35-44-57, Powerball: 25
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Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
All Washington Lottery retailers can redeem prizes up to $600. For prizes over $600, winners have the option to submit their claim by mail or in person at one of Washington Lottery’s regional offices.
To claim by mail, complete a winner claim form and the information on the back of the ticket, making sure you have signed it, and mail it to:
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This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Washington editor. You can send feedback using this form.
A contract worker was killed by a falling tree on Monday afternoon in Washington County, officials said.
The Washington County Office of the Coroner said in a news release that the contractor was killed after the tree fell on them around 4 p.m. The worker, who was not immediately identified, was hired to cut down a tree at a residence on Lynn Portal Road in Canton Township, and it fell in an unintended direction, killing the person, the coroner said.
No other information was immediately released on Monday evening. The Greene-Washington Regional Police Department and the coroner are investigating.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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