Gaza Ministry reports 136 martyrs in 24 hours amid ongoing genocide
WHO's chief warns that two million people in Gaza are starving due to a deliberate and ongoing aid blockade, and Gaza's Health Ministry publishes its new report.
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Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have received 136 martyrs, including 11 recovered from rubble, alongside 364 injuries in the last 24 hours, according to the latest report by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7, 2023, the death toll has risen to 53,475 martyrs, with 121,398 injured.
Additionally, since March 18, 2025, there have been 3,340 martyrs and 9,357 injuries reported.
On a related note, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a stark famine warning on Monday, stating that two million people in the besieged Strip are now starving due to the ongoing aid blockade imposed by the Israeli occupation since March 2.
"Two months into the latest blockade, two million people are starving," he said during his address at the opening of the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva, adding that 160,000 metric tons of food were "blocked at the border just minutes away" from those in need.
He condemned the Israeli Gaza aid blockade, stressing that the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, was pushing Gaza closer to famine with each passing day.
UN Agencies Ready to Deliver Aid
Ghebreyesus warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been worsened by continued aggression, forced evacuations, and attacks on already overwhelmed medical infrastructure. “People are dying from preventable diseases as medicines wait at the border, while attacks on hospitals deny people care and deter them from seeking it,” he said.
He noted that since November 2023, the WHO had facilitated the medical evacuation of more than 7,300 patients from Gaza, including 617 cancer patients. However, over 10,000 individuals remain in urgent need of medical evacuation.
The WHO chief further emphasized that the WHO and its UN partners are prepared to move quickly to deliver critical supplies into Gaza if access is granted. “We ask member states to accept more patients, and we ask Israel to allow these evacuations, and to allow urgently-needed food and medicine to enter,” he said.
Reaffirming the organization's readiness, he concluded, “WHO stands ready, with our UN partners, to move rapidly to deliver it if and when it is allowed to enter. I hope peace will prevail that can transcend generations. War is not the solution.”
Netanyahu: We are going to take over all of Gaza
On a related note, Netanyahu says pressure on "Israel" was “approaching a red line,” necessitating the resumption of aid into Gaza to press ahead with its ground assault.
“[US] Senators I know as supporters of Israel… come to me and say, ‘We’ll give you all the help you need to win the war… but we can’t be receiving pictures of famine [in Gaza],” Netanyahu said in a video released on his personal Telegram channel.
The Israeli occupation announced that "minimal aid" must be distributed in the Strip to prevent mass starvation among the civilian population. However, Netanyahu did threaten that "Israel is going to take over all of Gaza, that’s what we are going to do.”
However, Netanyahu did threaten that "Israel is going to take over all of Gaza, that’s what we are going to do.”