The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 59,587, with 143,498 injured since the conflict between Hamas and Israel erupted in October 2023, Gaza's health authorities said in a statement on Thursday.
In the past 24 hours, Israeli military operations in the enclave have claimed 89 lives and injured another 453, with 23 deaths among those who were receiving aid supplies, according to the statement.
According to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Thursday, overall assistance to Gaza remains woefully inadequate, despite aid supplies such as flour entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings.
The report said that as the conflict persists, Gazans are facing death, hunger, displacement, and psychological trauma.
Humanitarian agencies have highlighted a sharp increase in malnourished children in Gaza. In the first two weeks of July, among 56,000 children under the age of five screened in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis, nearly 5,000 were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition. This marks a surge in the proportion from 2.4 percent in February to 9 percent.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said that one-fifth of children in Gaza City are malnourished.
Meanwhile, humanitarian operations continue to face severe obstacles. Only eight out of the 16 aid missions coordinated on Wednesday were permitted to proceed, while the retrieval of essential medical supplies was refused.
The United Nations is urging an immediate ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors to prevent the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from deteriorating further.
Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises to 59,587
Attempts to curb China's scientific and technological advancement are futile, a fact that has already been proven, said Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, in an interview aired Friday.
In an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing, Mahbubani said he had stated this position in one of his articles published in the United States.
"Actually, I published an article, you know the two, I guess two leading journals in the United States on international relations. One is Foreign Affairs and the other is Foreign Policy. And last year I co-authored an article with two other co-authors, saying that all the efforts to stop China's scientific and technological development will fail. And it has failed always. You know, for example, the Soviet Union tried to prevent the spread of nuclear technology to China, China develops its own. The United States didn't want to share its technology on international space station with China. China develops its own space station. So clearly, efforts to stop China in the area of scientific innovation and technological development have failed. And so it'd be wiser for the West, including United States, to work with China other than to try and stop China seek development," he said.
Regarding China's progress on robots, Mahbubani said China is leading the world in the sector and hopes the country will share its expertise with the rest of the world.
"If there's one country that is preparing for the future well, it is China, because one in six human beings in the world is Chinese. But one in three robots in the world is Chinese, and one in two baby robots being born every day is Chinese. So China is producing far more robots than any other country is. So clearly it's preparing for the world of the future when we will have, for example, labor shortages, as you know, as you develop an aging society. So China is wisely investing in robots. But I hope that China will also share its learning and expertise with other countries. Also because the robots like that can also be helpful even to developing countries cause you can enhance the productivity of their populations, of their factories and so on so forth. So the world should be happy that China is leading the world in manufacturing, producing robots," he said.
Attempts to stop China's sci-tech development doomed to fail: former Singaporean diplomat
