EMILY KWONG, HOST:
Israel is expanding its war in Gaza against the militant group Hamas, with plans for a full takeover of Gaza City. Israel's cabinet approved the move amid international condemnation. With Israel controlling all of Gaza's borders, aid groups say starvation is increasing, while attempts to feed people are actually raising the death toll. NPR's Jane Arraf joins us from Amman. Hi Jane.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Emily.
KWONG: All right, well, what is happening on the ground?
ARRAF: Well, you know, Gaza City is almost A million people, and right now a lot of them are even more confused and more terrified than they were. Gaza health officials say more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in this war after the Hamas attack in 2023 that Israel says killed about 1,200. Starvation is spreading. The entire Gaza strip is essentially destroyed. And now this news with reports that Israel will force everyone out of the city as people really distraught. NPR producer Anas Baba spoke to some people in Gaza City after the announcement.
MAHMOUD ABDUL SALAM AHMED: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Mahmoud Abdul Salam Ahmed (ph) tells us, he doesn't know what to do. "I don't know where to take my family or where to go or what to take or where to get a tent," he says. And he says, while Gaza is starving, the way he sees it is, "the world isn't seeing us because we're not white or European." So this decision was controversial, even in Israel.
KWONG: Yeah.
ARRAF: Benjamin Netanyahu's government says it wants to destroy Hamas, but there are an increasing number of Israeli military experts who question whether they can do it this way. And they question the cost to Israel and its military conscripts.
KWONG: Yeah, we've even seen criticism of Israel's plans from staunch allies like Germany, which has decided to cut some weapons shipments to Israel. Will any of this change anything? Will it prevent a takeover of Gaza City?
ARRAF: Likely not. The German action is certainly a symbolic blow. Germany and several other key countries said the plan would aggravate what they called already a catastrophe. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Cairo today to try to rally help from other Muslim countries to counter the Israeli plans.
But let's face it, the country with the most power, because of its military and economic support for Israel, is the United States. And President Trump said earlier this week that the U.S. is focused on getting more aid to Gaza, but he said, militarily, it's up to Israel.
KWONG: Getting aid into Gaza has been a big problem. Israel said it has loosened restrictions on food and medicine amid an ongoing starvation crisis. Is it getting in? Is aid getting in?
ARRAF: Not enough, and really in convoluted ways. In desperation at Israeli restrictions on food going by land, some countries, including Jordan, have restarted airdrops, but they're not a solution. You know, each very expensive aircraft can only carry a fraction of the amount that can be loaded on a single truck. This week, at least six countries participated in those airdrops, and some of them, Emily, have proven deadly. A 14-year-old boy was the latest to be killed today after being hit by an airdrop pallet.
A video taken by Gaza photographer Bilal Abu Ammar (ph) shows wooden pallets loaded with cardboard boxes and parachutes attached dropping down from the clear sky. So they drift at the beginning, and then they land with a crash among a crowd of desperately hungry people. Muhannad Eid was among them, and he was hit in the head. In this video, a young man picks him up in his arms. His body's limp. He's wearing torn pants and one plastic slipper.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: And then in the hospital, his father, Akram (ph), cradles his body and kisses his face below the bloody bandage that's wrapped around his head. There was another boy, too, a 17-year-old who died today of injuries when another aid pallet fell on him this week in Gaza City. Experts say starvation is spreading in Gaza, and the only way to keep full-fledged famine at bay is to flood Gaza with truckloads of aid.
KWONG: That is NPR correspondent Jane Arraf. Thank you for bringing us this information.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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