Extreme Hunger In Gaza. France To Recognize Palestinian State

0:00Today on State of the World, food shortages and a Gaza hospital's malnutrition program, and France plans to recognize a Palestinian Palestinian. You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories, up close where they are happening. It's Friday, July 25th. I'm Christine Arismath. French President Macron says France will become the first G7 nation to recognize a Palestinian state more in a moment. First, there is a deepening hunger crisis in Gaza. Deaths from starvation are mounting by the day. Gaza's health ministry says at least 122 people, 83 of them children, have died from hunger since the war began.

0:54Israel says Hamas is to blame for disrupting aid delivery. Israel says the United Nations has failed to distribute supplies effectively. The aid agency, Doctors Without Borders, says its teams in Gaza are witnessing, quote, catastrophic levels of malnutrition. NPR's Anas Baba is in Gaza and brings us this report.

1:22In the waiting hall of the patient's friend's hospital in Gaza City, dozens of mothers cradle their infants. Typically, this space would resonate with the sounds of babies giggling or crying. Now, only a few babies have the strength to cry or play. Most lie motionless on their mother's laps. They are wasting away because their mothers say their breast milk has dried up. They are extremely malnourished as well. The result of the Israeli military's refusal to let most organizations bring in food and medical supplies to Gaza as they did before. Saeed Salah is a medical director of this pediatric hospital.

2:03He says the hospital's food reservoirs are gone. Before, there is some reservoir. Now, no reservoir at all. That's why no food, no reservoir, meaning there is a death. The hospital has actually suspended its malnutrition treatment program because they longer have any supplies. That's devastating for mothers here because this hospital had offered the last remaining pediatric program for malnourishment in North Gaza. Some desperate mothers have come to the hospital anyways. 19-year-old mother Najah Abu Shihada is another mother who has come. She brought her son. At one-year-old, he weighs only six and a half pounds.

2:45I sleep hungry and woke up hungry, Shihada says. A single loaf of bread costs$6. It's barely enough for anyone. Some food is being brought into Gaza by an Israeli and U.S. pact program called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. But the aid is disreputed as random hours in Israeli military zones, and hundreds of Palestinians have died from Israeli gunfire trying to get that food.

3:12Shehada says we haven't seen bread for ages. We wait for charity meals. If they come, we eat. She has not eaten in a week, she says. She has considered trying to get food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but fears being shot. Her son's father was killed last December, and if she dies, her son will have no one left. Anas Baba, NPR News, Gaza City. Next, President Emmanuel Macron says France plans to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations in New York. Macron's move comes as ceasefire negotiations have broken down again. Macron says there is no alternative as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsens and the few living Israeli hostages languish.

4:03NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports from Paris. Macron's comments on ex-Thursday night were met with fury by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the move rewards terror and could turn Gaza into a, quote, launch pad to annihilate Israel. President Trump, speaking to reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, was more dismissive than angry. He poo-pooed Macron's move. Look, he's a different kind of a guy. He's okay. He's a team player, pretty much. But here's the good news. What he says doesn't matter. It's not going to change it. But world anger is mounting as the situation in Gaza becomes more desperate.

4:47Hundreds of Gazans have also been killed at the new food distribution points run by the IDF and U.S. contractors. Gérard Arrault is a former French ambassador to the U.S., Israel, and the U.N. He says recognizing a Palestinian state is just part of a bigger plan. What the French are doing, it's not a one-shot recognition of a Palestinian state. Actually, there is all a diplomatic démarche behind it. A démarche that began with a June 9 letter to Macron from Mahmoud Abbas, in which the Palestinian Authority president condemned the Hamas attacks of October 7 and committed to recognizing the legitimacy of Israel, disbanding Hamas, accepting a demilitarized Palestinian state, and holding free elections in 2026.

5:36Aro says French and Saudi ministers meeting next week want to take the next step and create a roadmap for peace. In terms of rebuilding of Gaza, in terms of integrating Israel in the Middle East, in terms of disarming the Hamas. So it will be a global roadmap, and the idea is to bring on board the largest number of countries. Aron knows the reasons the plan could fail are many. A far-right government in Israel, Hamas entrenched in Gaza, and an unpredictable American president. He says France must try, but it's not naive. We do know that nothing is possible without the United States. Israeli Offer Bronstein is a longtime peace advocate.

6:21He once advised Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who steered Israel toward a two-state peace solution with its Palestinian neighbors until he was assassinated in 1995. Today, Bronstein advises President Macron on Israeli-Palestinian relations. It's the right time. It's the right time, he says, because only a political solution will bring peace. Bronstein believes October 7th would not have happened had there been a Palestinian state. I have no doubt about it. The best way to find terrorism is to have a responsibility by the Palestinians. Bronstein says he has no doubt other European and G7 countries like the UK, Australia and Canada will sign on.

7:03And he says they have commitments from many Arab and Muslim nations that once the war ends, they too will recognize Israel. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.

7:17That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.