- The head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, claimed Wednesday that Northern Gaza is already facing a famine. She is the first US official to publicly make such a claim. Al Jazeera (LR: 2 CP: 1)
- Power cited a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) from last month, which projected that 210K Gazans would face "IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe)." She noted that her office had previously reviewed and vetted the "methodology" used in the assessment. CNN (LR: 2 CP: 5)
- On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that the first aid trucks were sent through the new Northern crossing into the Gaza Strip, where they were screened by IDF soldiers. This comes as Israel faces growing criticism from Washington. Jerusalem Post (LR: 3 CP: 5)
- UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram also said Friday that her UN-marked aid vehicle was shot on Tuesday despite both the IDF and Hamas being aware of its movements. Shots came from "the direction of the checkpoint towards civilians." Guardian (LR: 2 CP: 5)
- The IDF's representative to Palestine said Israel couldn't send around 600 aid trucks through the Kerem Shalom Crossing due to "bottlenecks" on the Palestinian side, adding that the UN has also undercounted the number of trucks it sent on Monday by almost half. timesofisrael.com
- Israel says it's sent over 1.2K aid trucks into Gaza over the past three days, as well as pledged to reopen the Erez crossing, reopen around 20 bakeries, and fix a major water line. It also said it would build a new crossing to "gradually" increase deliveries to 500 trucks per day. Washington Post (LR: 2 CP: 5)
Establishment-critical narrative:
- The US and Israel continue to make empty promises with no genuine, tactical support to help Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe. With 33.5K Palestinians already dead and Israel delaying its promise to open new aid routes, estimates put the number of dead Gazans at 100K by August. The genocide has already begun, but the world, unfortunately, may not notice for months.
ANTIWAR (LR: 5 CP: 1)
Pro-establishment narrative:
- No one doubts that Gazans are starving, but that has to do with Hamas stealing aid deliveries. Estimates also show that Palestinian bakeries still have the capacity to make over 2M rolls and pita breads per day, with its land still able to produce enough fruits and vegetables. Israel has taken responsibility for its World Central Kitchen mistake, but it can't do so for the plethora of other incidents, not its fault.
THE HIGHLAND COUNTY PRESS
Nerd narrative:
- There's a 50% chance that there will be over 50K civilian deaths in the Israel-Gaza conflict by July 1, 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
METACULUS (LR: 3 CP: 3)