Japan doesn’t plan on responding to Trump tariff threats with countermeasures, government official says

(LONDON) — Israel’s decision to halt all humanitarian aid from crossing into Gaza is entering its third month.

The Israeli government said the blockade is to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, including the remains of those who have died, and to accept a new proposal to extend phase one of the ceasefire deal, which ended on March 18.

Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) wrote in a post on X in late April that humanitarian personnel have been allowed to enter and exit Gaza to support humanitarian efforts in the strip.

But multiple doctors and international aid workers told ABC News that water, food, medicine and medical supplies are running low, and in some cases running out completely.

Children are becoming malnourished, diseases are at risk of spreading and those who are injured cannot be treated properly, the workers said.

“If nothing is done, if food is not brought in, if water is not brought in, if vaccines are not brought in at scale — we’re already in a catastrophe, and we’re going to have way more children dying [from] preventable causes,” Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for UNICEF Palestine, told ABC News.

A Trump administration official told ABC News there is a no-yet-finalized plan to administer the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, starting with fewer than half a dozen distribution sites set up throughout the enclave.

The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.

Children becoming malnourished

The lack of food entering Gaza is one of the most severe problems the strip is facing, according to aid workers.

Osama As, the lead for quality, evidence and learning with the Mercy Corps Gaza Emergency Response Program, said the situation “is getting worse day after day, especially in relation to food” because most people in Gaza depend on humanitarian aid and community kitchens for food.

He said most families survive on one meal a day, and that most food available is canned food and bread.

“I never imagined that we would reach this point. Most people cannot afford the remaining items, which are either like canned foods and few quantities of vegetables which are produced locally here in Gaza,” As, who is based in Gaza, said. “The prices are very high, so I think most people cannot afford these kinds of items to buy from the local market.”

Dr. Ahmed Alfar, head of the pediatrics department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said he has seen many examples of malnourished children over the past two months.

One example he gave is a baby girl named Siwar, who was born four months ago. At birth, she weighed 2.5 kilograms, or 5.5 pounds.

Four months later, she should be weighing about 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds. Instead, she is only about 6 pounds, according to Alfar.

Alfar said the mother is unable to lactate and the family does not have much money, so they have been unable to feed Siwar milk, just sweetened water.

“That means in four months she gained just 200 grams, and this is unbelievable,” he told ABC News in Arabic. “She was a full-term baby. She was delivered vaginally. Her health was completely normal. … We called it one of the most severe [cases of] malnutrition. Now Siwar is facing a severe, critical situation.”

Similarly, Crickx, from UNICEF Palestine, who is currently in Al Mawasi, in southern Gaza, said he visited Nasser Hospital this week and met a 4-year-old boy named Osama.

Crickx said Osama should weigh 15 to 16 kilograms, about 33 to 35 pounds. Instead, he weighs 8 kilograms, or 17.5 pounds, Crickx said.

He said UNICEF and its partners have a small number of ready-to-use therapeutic foods to treat malnutrition, but they are running out. UNICEF has already run out of food meant to address the first signs of malnutrition.

“[Osama] has, really, the skin on the bones, and he was healthy before the beginning of this terrible war,” Crickx said. “So, we are now in a situation where children are hungry, they are little by little being affected more and more by acute malnutrition, acute severe malnutrition. And if nothing is done, we fear that the worst will happen to them.”

Community kitchen workers told ABC News if the border crossings remain closed, markets will close, and ingredients will run out. Some food relief organizations have already closed.

In late April, the United Nations’ World Food Programme said it had delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meal kitchens in Gaza, and it expected to fully run out of food in the coming days. Additionally, the nonprofit group World Central Kitchen (WCK) announced on Wednesday that it had run out of supplies and ingredients needed to cook meals or bake bread in Gaza.

WCK said it has trucks loaded with food and cooking fuel that have been ready to enter Gaza since early March as well as additional food and equipment ready to be shipped from Jordan and Egypt.

“In recent weeks, our teams stretched every remaining ingredient and fuel source using creativity and determination. We turned to alternative fuels like wood pallets and olive husk pellets and pivoted away from rice recipes that require more fuel in favor of stews with bread,” WCK said. “But we have now reached the limits of what is possible.”

Risk of spreading disease

The blockade has also had an impact on the spread of disease in Gaza, aid workers said.

Overcrowding in tent camps — along with a lack of clean water, hygiene products and poor sanitation — puts Gazans at risk of contracting infectious diseases, they said.

Limited supplies of soap and hygienic products “will continue to lead to escalation in skin manifestations of diseases like scabies,” Dr. Aqsa Durrani, a pediatrician who was recently on assignment in Gaza with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, told ABC News.

It’s unclear how many infections have been diagnosed over the past two months but a study from April 2024 estimated 55,400 cases of scabies and lice outbreaks among children under age five who were displaced.

Limited clean drinking water and overcrowded camps has also led to a rise in diarrheal diseases. A report from the Institute for Palestine Studies estimates at least half of cases recorded as of Jan. 2024 have been among children under 5 years old.

Crickx said a majority of children are affected by chronic watery diarrhea, which can lead to serious complications for babies and toddlers.

There has also been a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases in Gaza including hepatitis A, chickenpox, measles and polio.

Aid workers say the blockade imposed by Israel has halted the delivery of vaccines, such as the oral polio vaccine to Gaza, leaving residents vulnerable to diseases.

“Even in these terrible conditions, we have pregnant women and babies still being born in this community and population of 2 million people,” Durrani said. “And so, we need more vaccinations as well vaccines.”

Hospitals running out of supplies to treat injured

Since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel responded by declaring war, thousands have reportedly been killed or injured. Israel has said its goal is to destroy Hamas and that it attempts to minimize civilian casualties as often as possible.

More than 15 months into the conflict, Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire deal. The ceasefire saw the withdrawal of some Israeli forces to allow more aid to get in and the release of some of the hostages.

However, resumption of hostilities in mid-March led to an increase in injuries, Crickx said. UNICEF estimates that more than 500 children have been killed since March 18 and more than 1.250 children have been injured.

Durrani — who worked as medical activity manager for MSF at a field hospital in Deir al Balah in central Gaza from the end of February until the end of April — said she saw injuries caused by air strikes, fires after air strikes and from large cooking fires.

“Because there’s no cooking gas, people are burning household items and trying to cook over large open flames,’ she said. “So, we also saw children with burns due to those flames, as well as scald burns from children who had been waiting in food distribution lines, and the jostling of the food items would then lead to them being injured from hot food.”

What’s more, burn victims or those who are injured can take longer to heal due to malnourishment. They can also be at risk of infections or skin graft failure.

Durrani explained that poor wound healing can be associated with poor nutrition, which resulted in some pediatric burn patients developing infections.

“Not only was our staff hungry, but we also had no food for our patients, including our pediatric patients,” Durrani said. “Other than just being harrowing from a human perspective, it’s also, from a medical perspective, really impacts the way that people can heal from these injuries, and these types of burns.”

“Not even being clear that we will have enough antibiotics to treat the infection if the patients develop infections,” she continued. “In the face of also not having enough surgical materials or concern that we may run critically low on anesthesia supplies if they need to go back to the [operating room].”

In conversations with doctors this week, Crickx said hospitals are experiencing shortages of anesthetics and anticoagulants. There is also a lack of medical supplies to fix bones when they suffer fractures, he said.

Durrani said her team was forced to ration medications, including painkillers, antibiotics and critical surgery supplies. They often had to perform painful procedures and wound dressing changes without any pain control.

She said she didn’t want to cause pain by removing dressings without proper pain control, but if the dressings aren’t removed, then it could lead to infections for patients.

“We’re being forced to make impossible decisions like that, which is unconscionable, given that just miles away there are trucks and trucks full of food and supplies and medications and nutritional sources,” she said. “For me personally, this is the first time that I had to look patients in the eye and say I didn’t have something that I know is just miles away.”

ABC News’ Shannon Kingston and Diaa Ostaz contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ROTTERDAM, Netherlands) — Literally marked by a child’s hand, one of the Netherland’s most valuable paintings is now undergoing restoration after being accidentally damaged in a museum in Rotterdam.

The work in question — Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 (1960) by Mark Rothko — sustained several visible scratches in its unvarnished lower paint layer when a young child brushed against it during a visit to the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen — a publicly accessible art storage facility connected to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

The incident occurred at the Depot, that allows visitors to view thousands of works in a visible-storage environment, where much of the collection is accessible without traditional exhibition barriers.

To many, it feels less like a formal gallery and more like a backstage pass to the museum’s inner workings — a space where masterpieces are visible, but not always protected in the traditional sense.

The Rothko work was on display as part of Lievelingen, an exhibition featuring 70 beloved collection highlights, from Bruegel to Dalí, while the main museum is currently closed for renovations until at least 2030.

“The work by Rothko has suffered damage: a number of visible scratches in the unvarnished paint layer,” confirmed museum spokesperson Vincent Cardinaal. “It happened because a child, in an unsupervised moment, touched the lower part of the work. There was no intent. This was not vandalism.”

The child, reportedly under the age of five years old, had simply waved a hand too close to the canvas during what the museum later called an “unguarded moment.” The painting has since been removed from view and transferred to the museum’s conservation lab.

“We are currently researching the next steps for treatment and expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future,” Cardinaal added.

This is not the first time a Rothko painting has been damaged in a public museum. In 2012, a Polish man named Vladimir Umanets wrote on Black on Maroon (1958) at the Tate Modern in London, using black ink to sign his name and added the phrase “This is Yellowism.”

Umanets said it was part of his art movement, but he was arrested and sent to prison for two years. It took 18 months and about $250,000 to repair the painting, showing just how hard it is to fix even small black marker damage on a Rothko.

The museum has declined to release photos of the damage or reveal who will cover the costs.

“We never disclose information regarding valuation, security, or insurance,” Cardinaal said. “That is standard policy — not just here, but across most major museums in Europe.”

Though the painting has never been auctioned, one East European art collector has estimated its value between $50 and $60 million.

Acquired by the museum in 1970 — the year Rothko died — it is one of just two of his works held in public collections in the Netherlands.

Art crime expert Arthur Brand, known for recovering stolen masterpieces, said the damage — though minor — underscores the fragility of Rothko’s unvarnished surfaces.

“This wasn’t a protest or criminal act. It was a child being a child,” Brand said. “But Rothko’s surfaces are incredibly sensitive. A single swipe can mean months of restoration and tens of thousands in costs.”

Brand estimated the conservation work could range from $50,000 to $150,000 but explained that the bigger picture should not be lost.

“We should protect these works — absolutely — but we also need to let kids be around art. That’s how they fall in love with it,” he said.

A curator familiar with European museums and their display philosophy, who asked not to be named, offered a broader perspective.

“Given how exposed some of these works are, it’s almost surprising that these accidents don’t happen more often.”

The incident has revived questions about the risks of displaying high-value art in open-access settings. Still, the museum stands by its approach.

And as the scratched Rothko awaits restoration, Brand summed it simply.

“In every crowd of 100, there’s always one person — or in this case, one tiny hand — capable of a very big accident.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of graphic violence.

Aid distribution through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites (GHF) resumed at two sites in Rafah, Gaza, on Thursday, the group said.

One of the sites, which has been used by GHF previously, is now closed after distribution was finished for the day, the U.S.-backed group said. The second site is a new one that is located 1 kilometer away and will open at 2:15 p.m. local time, according to the GHF.

Aid in Gaza was paused after several people died and were injured trying to reach the sites to obtain food, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, eyewitness reports on the ground and international aid organizations working in Gaza.

Palestinians described harrowing scenes of bullets flying and people dying around them as they tried to get aid with a famine looming in Gaza.

The U.S.- and Israel-backed GHF suspended distribution of aid in Gaza on Wednesday after a deadly shooting left at least 27 people dead and more than 90 others injured on Tuesday while people were trying to reach one of the distribution sites in southern Gaza, according to Gaza health officials, eyewitnesses on the ground in Gaza and the International Committee of the Red Cross working on the ground in Gaza.

The GHF asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to “enhance its security measures beyond the perimeter,” “develop clearer guidance” and “enhance IDF force training to support safety,” a GHF source told ABC News on Wednesday.

The newly established food distribution centers, constructed last month according to satellite imagery obtained and reviewed by ABC News, in southern Gaza have been overrun since they opened last week, with thousands of Palestinians in search of food and medicine following Israel’s partial lifting of the 11-week blockade of aid, according to aid groups.

The Israeli government imposed an 11-week blockade on all humanitarian aid entering Gaza on March 2, after the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended. The Israeli government said the blockade was put in place to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages being held in Gaza.

One Palestinian who was injured trying to get flour at one of the sites said he was “surprised to find bullets hitting us,” when he went in search of food.

“I went to get some flour — only flour. Just a kilo or two of flour for our home. We were surprised to find bullets hitting us. Even lying on the ground bullets were still hitting us,” Kamel Muhanna, a Palestinian who was injured while attempting to receive aid in Rafah, told ABC News.

Muhanna described people dying around him while he was near the aid distribution site trying to get food. Those whose family members were with them collected their bodies, but those who did not remained on the ground, he said.

“The bullet passed through the head of the young man in front of me and then hit me. There were like 100 in front of me and I still got hit,” Muhanna said. “If the bullet hadn’t killed the young man in front of me, it would have taken off my arm.”

Dozens of Palestinians were killed and hundreds more were injured in two events in the last week, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and the International Committee of the Red Cross working on the ground in Gaza.

Nasser NaserAllah, a Palestinian who was being treated inside Nasser Hospital, told ABC News the aid “is like a trap.”

“If there wasn’t aid, fewer people would have died,” he said. “They killed women, children [there was] blood on the ground everywhere — huge tragedies.”

The IDF acknowledged they “carried out warning fire approximately half a kilometer from the aid distribution center, targeting a few individuals who were approaching in a way that posed a security threat,” in a video statement given in English by IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said they have responded to five incidents, four of which had occurred in the previous 96 hours.

The majority of victims suffered gunshot wounds, and “all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site,” the ICRC said.

The GHF said it closed the distribution sites Wednesday for “preparations and staging” to prepare for the large number of people it expects to arrive.

“We did not expect 15,000 per hour,” the GHF said in the statement.

At the same time, the GHF said in a statement to media Tuesday they have distributed approximately 7 million meals in Gaza since they began operating last week.

The GHF also said they distributed 21 truckloads of food, totaling 20,160 boxes providing approximately 1,159,200 meals to Palestinians on Tuesday morning.

Established international aid groups operating inside Gaza — including Amnesty International and the ICRC — and the United Nations have criticized the U.S.-backed aid distribution plan, saying it is militarized and negates the neutrality of international humanitarian work.

NaserAllah claimed that the situation goes beyond hunger.

“People are living in famine,” he said.

Gaza’s entire population is experiencing critical levels of hunger, according to a report released last month. Gaza’s 2.1 million residents will face a “crisis” level of food insecurity — or worse — through the end of September, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification partnership report.

He also noted that people are forced to go to the aid distribution areas despite the risks.

“A week ago, my cousin Ibn Hassoonah, went to the aid station. They shot him dead [but we still go] because of the severity of the hunger,” he said. “If they don’t die from bullets, they die from hunger.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.