Gaza Strip/ Rome   -   Israeli forces on Tuesday bombarded besieged Gaza where Palestinian officials said one strike killed 10 family members of Palestinian group’s  chief Ismail Haniyeh, including his sister. The reported strike came three days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war raging since October 7 was winding down, and as his defence minister was visiting Washington.

Israel’s military did not immediately confirm the early-morning strike, which the civil defence agency in Gaza said hit the family’s house in the northern Al-Shati refugee camp, leaving some bodies trapped under the rubble. Almost half a million people are still experiencing “catastrophic” hunger in Gaza, with famine still a high risk, a United Nations-backed assessment found Tuesday. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership said its March warning of imminent famine in the north of the Palestinian territory had not materialised. “However, the situation in Gaza remains catastrophic and there is a high and sustained risk of famine across the whole Gaza Strip,” the report said, warning against any complacency. It said around 495,000 people -- around 22 percent of the Gaza population, according to the UN -- are still facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” known as IPC Phase 5.

Another 745,000 people are classified as in a food security emergency.

The UN’s World Food Programme said the new report “paints a stark picture of ongoing hunger”.

“The improvement shows the difference that greater access can make. Increased food deliveries to the north and nutrition services have helped to reduce the very worst levels of hunger, leaving a still desperate situation,” it said.

But it warned that in the south of Gaza, the situation was getting worse. “Hostilities in Rafah in May displaced more than a million people and severely limited humanitarian access,” it said. “Meanwhile, the security vacuum has fostered lawlessness and disorder which severely hamper humanitarian operations.  “WFP now fears that southern Gaza could soon see the same catastrophic levels of hunger previously recorded in the northern areas.”

The IPC is an initiative involving over 20 partners, including governments, UN agencies and NGOs.

10 children per day losing one or two legs in Gaza: UNRWA

Ten children per day are losing one or both of their legs in the war in Gaza, the head of the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said Tuesday. “Basically we have every day 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva. Citing figures from the UN children’s agency UNICEF, he said that number “does not even include the arms and the hands, and we have many more” of these. “Ten per day, that means around 2,000 children after the more than 260 days of this brutal war,” Lazzarini said.

He said amputation often takes place “in quite horrible conditions, and sometimes without anaesthesia”. Children in Gaza today are paying a “high price”, Lazzarini said.

He pointed to findings published by Save the Children on Monday that up to 21,000 children are estimated to be missing in the chaos of the war in Gaza. At least 17,000 children are believed to be unaccompanied and separated, while around 4,000 are likely missing under the rubble and an unknown number are believed to be in mass graves, the report said.

Those numbers come in addition to the thousands of children who figure among the at least 37,658 people that the Gaza health ministry says have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. That attack, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants also took 251 people hostage in the attack, 116 of whom remain captive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel. The army says 42 of those are dead.

- Funding crisis -

UNRWA coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, but Lazzarini warned that the agency was facing relentless attack and deep funding woes.

The agency, which has been significantly underfunded for years, has been plunged into crisis since January, when Israel accused a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in Hamas’s October 7 attack.

A slew of probes, including one led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed that Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.

A separate independent investigation by the UN’s internal oversight body is ongoing, with probes of 14 UNRWA employees underway, Lazzarini said.

The accusations prompted several countries to suspend funding to UNRWA.

Many -- though not top donor the United States, nor Britain -- have resumed payments but Lazzarini said funding woes persisted.

“We have cash until end of August,” he said Tuesday, adding that the agency still had “a shortfall of about $140 million... to bridge the end of the year”.