MUMBAI, India (AP) — The blue police van dominates the frame.
A young woman, Rhiya Ahir, stands in front of it in a rain-soaked hoodie, one hand pressed against the metal. Behind the windshield sit police officers. Inside the van are young protesters detained after demonstrations in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Wednesday.
India’s “Cockroach” protests began more than a month ago over alleged leaks in some of the country’s most competitive entrance exams for medical schools and government jobs. Since then, the movement has grown beyond exam complaints, drawing professionals and families and reflecting broader public frustration.
The confrontation lasted about 40 minutes.
Ahir said she had been waiting for friends before joining the protest when she saw the police van. She asked officers if they had the required paperwork to detain the protesters.
Unsatisfied with the response, she first walked alongside the moving vehicle. When she could no longer keep up, she stepped in front of it.
The 27-year-old said she could not accept seeing ordinary citizens being treated like criminals simply for protesting.
The driver revved the engine, startling her. Ahir said the possibility of being detained or injured crossed her mind, but she refused to move. She held her ground until the protesters were released.
Ahir admitted she was afraid. But conviction prevailed.
“I knew one thing,” she said. “If I had started this, I had to end it.”
Rhiya Ahir, a model, blocks a police van carrying detained protesters during a demonstration demanding educational reforms as part of the Cockroach Janta Party's ongoing protest movement in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashish Vaishnav)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The world’s leading authority on food insecurity said Thursday that the situation in Gaza had improved since famine was declared in parts of the Palestinian territory last year, but warned that conditions remained at crisis levels and could slip back into catastrophe.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said a reduction in fighting and the fact that Israel was allowing more aid into Gaza had a “significant impact, albeit unevenly across areas.” But it noted that most families living in the war-battered enclave still weren't getting nearly enough to eat.
“Even small disruptions to humanitarian access could rapidly reverse recent gains,” the report warned.
The designation underscored how conditions in Gaza have both markedly improved since last year and remain at crisis levels without immediate prospects for recovery. More than 1,185 people have been killed by Israeli strikes and shelling since last October’s agreement, according to the territory's health ministry.
Israel controls more than half the territory, leaving Palestinians confined to squalid tent camps and heavily damaged urban neighborhoods. Failing sewage systems have contributed to routine disease outbreaks and left residents with inconsistent access to basic services.
The IPC assesses hunger crises by measuring indicators of acute malnutrition and famine, including how many households are experiencing extreme food shortages, how many young children show bodily signs of malnutrition and how many people are dying from starvation.
It uses five phases to classify food insecurity. Last August, IPC confirmed famine, its most severe classification, in Gaza Governorate, which covers Gaza City. Thursday’s report classified all five governorates in the territory as being in Phase 3 “crisis” conditions while estimating that more than 200,000 residents were experiencing Phase 4 “emergency” conditions.
Although acute food insecurity — whether households can get enough food to survive — remains at crisis levels, the authority said acute malnutrition — the physical effects of not eating enough — had declined to levels classified as acceptable, despite last year’s warnings.
It has declared famines in other places, including parts of Sudan and Somalia. But the authority's declaration last August of famine in parts of Gaza was its first in the Middle East.
Israel strenuously denied allegations of widespread hunger and manmade famine in Gaza, calling them lies. But after imposing an almost total blockade on humanitarian aid from early March to mid-May last year, it began allowing more aid into the territory.
This week's assessment was IPC’s first since December 2025, when it said famine in Gaza City had not spread as feared, downgrading the governorate's classification to Phase 4.
COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, said it “strongly rejects the claims and conclusions” in Thursday's report because it lacked objectivity and did not take into account Israel's data about the amount of aid entering.
As the world’s attention has shifted to Iran, efforts to advance reconstruction, demilitarize Gaza or transition governance to a U.S.-led Board of Peace have mostly stalled. “Measurable improvements in humanitarian access and overall conditions” have taken hold since Israel and Hamas signed on to an agreement that decreased the intensity of fighting, IPC said.
It warned such gains were fragile and partial.
Even with improvements, Gaza’s widespread destruction has left it almost wholly dependent on aid, the report warns. Palestinians have lost their livelihoods and access to most of the territory’s agricultural land, which lies in the more than half of Gaza that remains under Israel’s control.
The IPC cautioned about some indicators pointing to renewed deterioration. It said household food consumption has improved and acute malnutrition — not eating to the extent that it's life-threatening — has “declined significantly.” Still, roughly 1.4 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity through the end of the year, about 200,000 more than the IPC projected in its previous assessment covering mid-April through June of this year.
The prolonged nature of the crisis has contributed to a rise in reported cases of “stunting,” a condition in which children’s growth is permanently impaired by not being able to eat. IPC said the rise reflected “the cumulative impact of inadequate conditions” and, for kids, would have “lasting consequences for growth and cognitive development.”
Almost 75,000 children under five will require treatment for acute malnutrition between now and April 2027. Almost 25,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are expected to experience acute malnutrition over the same period, though the number benefiting from supplementary feeding programs has declined “due to funding constraints and uncertainty” over whether Israel will continue allowing international aid groups to operate, the report said.
Israel introduced new registration rules for international NGOs last year that require organizations to disclose extensive information that aid workers say could endanger staff and compromise humanitarian operations. Aid organizations say the rules could force some groups to halt operations in Gaza.
__ Najib Joubain and Sam Mednick contributed reporting from Cairo and Tamariu, Spain
A municipal worker sprays pesticide as part of an initiative to combat rodents and insects at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Omar Ghabin, 14, looks at the camera as he carries a bag after sorting through trash at a landfill in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
