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Prisoners look out of their cell at the maximum security penitentiary CECOT on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.
"I feel like my son was kidnapped," said the father of Merwil Gutiérrez.
As U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen headed to El Salvador on Wednesday morning to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, some social media users urged him to find out more about the status of another young man who immigration agents reportedly wrongly sent to the Central American country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center—despite the fact that he had no criminal record.
"Please ask about Merwil Gutiérrez as well," one person asked Van Hollen on Bluesky.
As Abrego Garcia's case, and the Trump administration's repeated baseless lies that he was a "convicted" gang member, have garnered national attention, other stories of people being wrongly swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in recent weeks have also been reported—and in the case of Gutiérrez, the ICE agents who arrested the 19-year-old apparently knew that he shouldn't be detained.
As Documentedreported on Wednesday, Gutiérrez's father Wilmer learned on February 24 that his son had been detained by ICE. His nephew Luis, who lived with the father and son in a Bronx apartment, told him that he'd witnessed the arrest:
When his son was on his way back, just steps from his home, ICE agents stopped him. "The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, 'No, he's not the one,' like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, 'Take him anyway.'"
With ICE acting on the Trump administration's orders under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to fast-track the expulsion of members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua—and suspending constitutional due process rights—agents have reportedly detained many of the 238 people they recently arrested based solely on the fact that they had tattoos.
In Gutiérrez's case, the Venezuelan asylum-seeker had none, and had no criminal record either in his home country or the United States.
"I feel like my son was kidnapped," Wilmer Gutiérrez told Documented. "I've spent countless hours searching for him, going from one precinct to another, speaking with numerous people who kept referring me elsewhere. Yet, after all this, no one has given me any information or provided a single document about his case."
Wilmer and Merwil Gutiérrez arrived in the U.S. in 2023; Wilmer had worked at Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company before starting a cellphone repair business. The father and son, along with Luis, traveled to the U.S. on foot through the Darién jungle in the hopes of earning more money. They applied for an appointment to seek humanitarian parole through the CBP One app that was dismantled after President Donald Trump took office in January, and were sent to various shelters before arriving in New York City, where they found jobs at a warehouse and began waiting for their asylum status to be formalized, with authorities giving them a court date for February 2027.
Their life was disrupted, said William Parra, an attorney representing Gutiérrez, when "Merwil was detained for hanging out with friends and was at the wrong place at the wrong time."
"ICE was not looking for him, nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Merwil was in any gang," Parra told Documented.
Wilmer last spoke to his son on March 14, when police allowed Gutiérrez to make a brief phone call. At the time Gutiérrez was being held in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and had been told he would be sent to a facility in Texas before being deported back to Venezuela. Instead, he was one of hundreds of people sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) opened by Salvadoran President Nayim Bukele—who this week appeared at the Oval Office and scoffed at the suggestion that he would release a detainee who had been sent to CECOT in error.
As The New York Timesreported Tuesday, Gutiérrez, Abrego Garcia, and Andry José Hernandez—a hair stylist who has denied any gang affiliation after being sent to El Salvador by ICE—are likely just a few of potentially dozens of people whom the Trump administration has imprisoned despite their lack of a criminal history or conviction.
The Times ran the names of the 238 Venezuelan men sent to CECOT through three U.S. public records databases; ran background checks in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile; interviewed family members and experts on Tren de Aragua; and examined court documents.
The investigation found that at least 32 of the men "have faced serious criminal accusations or convictions in the United States or abroad, including a man accused of participating in an assault in Chicago, another convicted of trying to smuggle arms out of the United States, and others accused of theft, strangulation, domestic battery, or harboring undocumented immigrants."
Out of the 206 other men, two dozen "had been accused or found guilty of lower-level offenses in the United States or elsewhere, including trespassing, speeding in a school zone, and driving an improperly registered vehicle," while the others had "no evidence of a criminal background, beyond offenses related to being unauthorized migrants."
As Van Hollen headed to El Salvador, journalist Ashton Pittman said the U.S. "should also be checking on the other hundreds of people who Trump's administration abducted and human trafficked to El Salvador without due process."
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
As U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen headed to El Salvador on Wednesday morning to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, some social media users urged him to find out more about the status of another young man who immigration agents reportedly wrongly sent to the Central American country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center—despite the fact that he had no criminal record.
"Please ask about Merwil Gutiérrez as well," one person asked Van Hollen on Bluesky.
As Abrego Garcia's case, and the Trump administration's repeated baseless lies that he was a "convicted" gang member, have garnered national attention, other stories of people being wrongly swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in recent weeks have also been reported—and in the case of Gutiérrez, the ICE agents who arrested the 19-year-old apparently knew that he shouldn't be detained.
As Documentedreported on Wednesday, Gutiérrez's father Wilmer learned on February 24 that his son had been detained by ICE. His nephew Luis, who lived with the father and son in a Bronx apartment, told him that he'd witnessed the arrest:
When his son was on his way back, just steps from his home, ICE agents stopped him. "The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, 'No, he's not the one,' like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, 'Take him anyway.'"
With ICE acting on the Trump administration's orders under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to fast-track the expulsion of members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua—and suspending constitutional due process rights—agents have reportedly detained many of the 238 people they recently arrested based solely on the fact that they had tattoos.
In Gutiérrez's case, the Venezuelan asylum-seeker had none, and had no criminal record either in his home country or the United States.
"I feel like my son was kidnapped," Wilmer Gutiérrez told Documented. "I've spent countless hours searching for him, going from one precinct to another, speaking with numerous people who kept referring me elsewhere. Yet, after all this, no one has given me any information or provided a single document about his case."
Wilmer and Merwil Gutiérrez arrived in the U.S. in 2023; Wilmer had worked at Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company before starting a cellphone repair business. The father and son, along with Luis, traveled to the U.S. on foot through the Darién jungle in the hopes of earning more money. They applied for an appointment to seek humanitarian parole through the CBP One app that was dismantled after President Donald Trump took office in January, and were sent to various shelters before arriving in New York City, where they found jobs at a warehouse and began waiting for their asylum status to be formalized, with authorities giving them a court date for February 2027.
Their life was disrupted, said William Parra, an attorney representing Gutiérrez, when "Merwil was detained for hanging out with friends and was at the wrong place at the wrong time."
"ICE was not looking for him, nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Merwil was in any gang," Parra told Documented.
Wilmer last spoke to his son on March 14, when police allowed Gutiérrez to make a brief phone call. At the time Gutiérrez was being held in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and had been told he would be sent to a facility in Texas before being deported back to Venezuela. Instead, he was one of hundreds of people sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) opened by Salvadoran President Nayim Bukele—who this week appeared at the Oval Office and scoffed at the suggestion that he would release a detainee who had been sent to CECOT in error.
As The New York Timesreported Tuesday, Gutiérrez, Abrego Garcia, and Andry José Hernandez—a hair stylist who has denied any gang affiliation after being sent to El Salvador by ICE—are likely just a few of potentially dozens of people whom the Trump administration has imprisoned despite their lack of a criminal history or conviction.
The Times ran the names of the 238 Venezuelan men sent to CECOT through three U.S. public records databases; ran background checks in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile; interviewed family members and experts on Tren de Aragua; and examined court documents.
The investigation found that at least 32 of the men "have faced serious criminal accusations or convictions in the United States or abroad, including a man accused of participating in an assault in Chicago, another convicted of trying to smuggle arms out of the United States, and others accused of theft, strangulation, domestic battery, or harboring undocumented immigrants."
Out of the 206 other men, two dozen "had been accused or found guilty of lower-level offenses in the United States or elsewhere, including trespassing, speeding in a school zone, and driving an improperly registered vehicle," while the others had "no evidence of a criminal background, beyond offenses related to being unauthorized migrants."
As Van Hollen headed to El Salvador, journalist Ashton Pittman said the U.S. "should also be checking on the other hundreds of people who Trump's administration abducted and human trafficked to El Salvador without due process."
As U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen headed to El Salvador on Wednesday morning to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, some social media users urged him to find out more about the status of another young man who immigration agents reportedly wrongly sent to the Central American country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center—despite the fact that he had no criminal record.
"Please ask about Merwil Gutiérrez as well," one person asked Van Hollen on Bluesky.
As Abrego Garcia's case, and the Trump administration's repeated baseless lies that he was a "convicted" gang member, have garnered national attention, other stories of people being wrongly swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in recent weeks have also been reported—and in the case of Gutiérrez, the ICE agents who arrested the 19-year-old apparently knew that he shouldn't be detained.
As Documentedreported on Wednesday, Gutiérrez's father Wilmer learned on February 24 that his son had been detained by ICE. His nephew Luis, who lived with the father and son in a Bronx apartment, told him that he'd witnessed the arrest:
When his son was on his way back, just steps from his home, ICE agents stopped him. "The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, 'No, he's not the one,' like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, 'Take him anyway.'"
With ICE acting on the Trump administration's orders under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to fast-track the expulsion of members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua—and suspending constitutional due process rights—agents have reportedly detained many of the 238 people they recently arrested based solely on the fact that they had tattoos.
In Gutiérrez's case, the Venezuelan asylum-seeker had none, and had no criminal record either in his home country or the United States.
"I feel like my son was kidnapped," Wilmer Gutiérrez told Documented. "I've spent countless hours searching for him, going from one precinct to another, speaking with numerous people who kept referring me elsewhere. Yet, after all this, no one has given me any information or provided a single document about his case."
Wilmer and Merwil Gutiérrez arrived in the U.S. in 2023; Wilmer had worked at Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company before starting a cellphone repair business. The father and son, along with Luis, traveled to the U.S. on foot through the Darién jungle in the hopes of earning more money. They applied for an appointment to seek humanitarian parole through the CBP One app that was dismantled after President Donald Trump took office in January, and were sent to various shelters before arriving in New York City, where they found jobs at a warehouse and began waiting for their asylum status to be formalized, with authorities giving them a court date for February 2027.
Their life was disrupted, said William Parra, an attorney representing Gutiérrez, when "Merwil was detained for hanging out with friends and was at the wrong place at the wrong time."
"ICE was not looking for him, nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Merwil was in any gang," Parra told Documented.
Wilmer last spoke to his son on March 14, when police allowed Gutiérrez to make a brief phone call. At the time Gutiérrez was being held in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and had been told he would be sent to a facility in Texas before being deported back to Venezuela. Instead, he was one of hundreds of people sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) opened by Salvadoran President Nayim Bukele—who this week appeared at the Oval Office and scoffed at the suggestion that he would release a detainee who had been sent to CECOT in error.
As The New York Timesreported Tuesday, Gutiérrez, Abrego Garcia, and Andry José Hernandez—a hair stylist who has denied any gang affiliation after being sent to El Salvador by ICE—are likely just a few of potentially dozens of people whom the Trump administration has imprisoned despite their lack of a criminal history or conviction.
The Times ran the names of the 238 Venezuelan men sent to CECOT through three U.S. public records databases; ran background checks in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile; interviewed family members and experts on Tren de Aragua; and examined court documents.
The investigation found that at least 32 of the men "have faced serious criminal accusations or convictions in the United States or abroad, including a man accused of participating in an assault in Chicago, another convicted of trying to smuggle arms out of the United States, and others accused of theft, strangulation, domestic battery, or harboring undocumented immigrants."
Out of the 206 other men, two dozen "had been accused or found guilty of lower-level offenses in the United States or elsewhere, including trespassing, speeding in a school zone, and driving an improperly registered vehicle," while the others had "no evidence of a criminal background, beyond offenses related to being unauthorized migrants."
As Van Hollen headed to El Salvador, journalist Ashton Pittman said the U.S. "should also be checking on the other hundreds of people who Trump's administration abducted and human trafficked to El Salvador without due process."
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day: He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself."
The budget blueprint that U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled Friday would give a record $1.01 trillion to the American military for the coming fiscal year while imposing $163 billion in total cuts to housing, education, healthcare, climate, and labor programs.
The proposal, released by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, was viewed by Democratic lawmakers and other critics as a clear statement of the White House's intent to gut programs that working class Americans rely on while pursuing another round of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and bolstering the Pentagon, a morass of waste and abuse.
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself and raises taxes on middle-class Americans with his reckless tariffs."
"This president believes we should shred at least $163 billion in investments here at home that make all the difference for families and have been essential to America's success—but that we should hand billionaires and the biggest corporations trillions in new tax breaks," Murray added. "That is outrageous—and it should offend every hardworking American who wants their tax dollars to help them live a good life, not pad the pockets of billionaires."
"Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
According to the OMB summary, Trump's Fiscal Year 2026 budget would cut over $4.5 billion from Title I and K-12 education programs, $4 billion from a program that provides heating assistance to low-income households, $2.4 billion from safe drinking water funding, $26 billion from rental assistance programs, $17 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $100 million from environmental justice programs, $1.3 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and $4.6 billion from the Labor Department.
"President Trump is again betraying the millions of Americans who believed him when he promised to lower costs," Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement. "This time, he's taking aim at anyone who attends a public school, relies on rental assistance to keep a roof over their heads, or accesses healthcare through Medicaid or Medicare."
"Instead of standing up for everyday Americans," said Carrk, "Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, noted that the cuts to social programs in the White House's budget proposal "are extreme by any standard, but they're extreme even by Trump's own standards," far exceeding even what he proposed during his first term.
"The cuts in this budget are especially egregious," said Kogan, "when you consider that Trump is also trying to push the largest Medicaid and food assistance cuts in American history through Congress over the next few months."
Meanwhile, the U.S. military would see a $113 billion budget increase compared to current levels if the Republican-controlled Congress were to enact Trump's proposal. The 13% increase would push the nation's annual military budget above $1 trillion, which analysts have described as the highest level since the Second World War.
"The Pentagon is bloated, wasteful, and has NEVER passed an audit," the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen wrote in response to Trump's budget. "What a disgrace."
RSF says Trump's moves "have jeopardized the country's news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism."
Press freedom in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since Reporters Without Borders began publishing its annual ranking more than 20 years ago, with President Donald Trump's return to power "greatly exacerbating the situation," RSF said Friday.
The U.S. fell from 55th to 57th place on RSF's World Press Freedom Index, marking the second straight year that the situation in the country which lists freedom of the press first in its Bill of Rights has been classified as "problematic." The report comes ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
The U.S. has been trending downward on RSF's index since 2013, when it ranked 32nd in global press freedom. A decade later, it had fallen to 45th place before plunging to 55th place last year amid Trump's attacks on the media.
"Trump was elected to a second term after a campaign in which he denigrated the press on a daily basis and made explicit threats to weaponize the federal government against the media," the report states.
Press freedom in the United States has hit a record low, according to the latest World Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders.
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— Axios (@axios.com) May 1, 2025 at 9:03 PM
"His early moves in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban The Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardized the country's news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism," the publication continues, accusing Trump of using "false economic pretexts" to "bring the press into line."
"The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides broad protections for the press. However, no meaningful press freedom legislation has been passed at the national level in recent years despite the country's consistent slide on the Press Freedom Index," the report notes. "The PRESS Act, a federal shield law, failed to pass for a second successive time in 2024. More than a dozen states and communities have proposed or enacted laws to limit journalists' access to public spaces, including barring them from legislative meetings and preventing them from recording the police."
RSF continued:
Economic constraints have a considerable impact on journalists. Roughly one-third of the American newspapers operating in 2005 have now shuttered. While some public media outlets, and radio stations in particular, have been able to offset this decline thanks to online subscription models, others have found ways to sustain growth through individual donations. Massive waves of layoffs swept the U.S. media throughout 2023 and 2024 and have continued into 2025, affecting both local newsrooms and major legacy outlets. Many parts of the country are now considered news deserts, with the disappearance of local news outlets reaching crisis levels. Since 2022, more than 8,000 journalists have been laid off in the U.S.
Furthermore, "more Americans have no trust in the media than trust it a fair amount. Online harassment, particularly towards women and minorities, is also a serious issue for journalists and can impact their quality of life and safety."
"Politicians' open disdain for the media has trickled down to the public," RSF added. "Journalists reporting on the ground can face harassment, intimidation, and assault while working. When covering demonstrations, journalists are sometimes attacked and physically assaulted by protestors or wrongfully arrested by police. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, there were 49 journalist arrests in 2024 compared to only 15 in 2023. The last journalist to be killed in the course of his work was Dylan Lyons in February of 2023."
RSF paints a grim picture for journalism around the world.
"The conditions for practicing journalism are bad in half of the world's countries," as "less than 1% of the world's population lives in a country where press freedom is fully guaranteed," the report states.
Noting that economic self-sufficiency is critical to a free press, RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé said in a statement that "guaranteeing freedom, independence,s and plurality in today's media landscape requires stable and transparent financial conditions."
"Without economic independence, there can be no free press," Bocandé continued. "When news media are financially strained, they are drawn into a race to attract audiences at the expense of quality reporting, and can fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who seek to exploit them. When journalists are impoverished, they no longer have the means to resist the enemies of the press—those who champion disinformation and propaganda."
"The media economy must urgently be restored to a state that is conducive to journalism and ensures the production of reliable information, which is inherently costly," she added. "Solutions exist and must be deployed on a large scale. The media's financial independence is a necessary condition for ensuring free, trustworthy information that serves the public interest."
RSF's new rankings come days after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ended a Biden administration policy that strictly limited the Justice Department's authority to seize journalists' records and compel them to testify in leak investigations.
On Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a report on Trump's first 100 days in office, which the group said were "marked by a flurry of executive actions that have created a chilling effect and have the potential to curtail media freedoms."
"It is disturbing that, on the eve of #WorldPressFreedomDay, the Trump administration has dealt major blows to journalists and the public they serve." — Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ's U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator
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— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) May 2, 2025 at 9:09 AM
"From denying access to upending respect for the independence of a free press to vilifying news organizations to threatening reprisals, this administration has begun to exert its power to punish or reward based on coverage," CPJ said. "Whether in the states or on the streets, this behavior is setting a new standard for how the public can treat journalists."
"The uncertainty and fear resulting from these actions have caused requests for safety advice to increase as journalists and newsrooms aim to prepare for what might be next," the group added. "These moves represent a notable escalation from the first Trump administration, which also pursued banning and deriding elements of the press. After nearly a decade of repeating insults and falsehoods, and filing lawsuits, Trump has normalized disdain for media to an alarming degree."
The two-month-long siege is a "clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable."
"This is genocide in action," said one official with Amnesty International on Friday, referring to Israel's two-month humanitarian blockade in Gaza which has resulted in death, starvation, and suffering on a nearly unimaginable scale.
The human rights group is demanding that Israel's allies, including the United States, take immediate action to ensure the Israeli government lifts the total aid blockade that's plunged the enclave into what the United Nations has called "mass starvation," with food supplies rapidly dwindling and thousands of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition.
"The international community must not continue to stand by as Israel perpetrates these atrocities with impunity," said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns.
After a brief cease-fire, Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of commercial goods and aid into Gaza on March 2 and cut off power to the enclave's desalination plant, after it had been briefly reconnected to electricity. The plant's blackout has worsened water scarcity that's plagued Gaza for all of Israel's 17-year blockade and has left some Palestinians resorting to drinking seawater.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the agency is in "constant contact" with Israeli authorities as it advocates for the reopening of border crossings.
"We don't ask if food is nutritious or not, if it's fresh or good; that' a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don't want my child to die hungry."
"Food stocks have now mainly run out, water access has become impossible," Olga Cherevko said, leaving children "who have been deprived of their childhood for many months... rummaging through piles of trash" in search of food and combustible material to burn for cooking, due to rapidly shrinking supplies of fuel.
"Gaza is inching closer to running on empty," said Cherevko.
Amnesty interviewed 35 internally displaced people about the forced starvation crisis facing Gaza, which began again shortly before Israel resumed its bombardment of the enclave on March 18—killing at least 2,325 people including 820 children since then.
With the severe food scarcity being "exploited by individuals hoarding or looting supplies, selling them at extortionate prices," according to Amnesty, most Palestinians are relying on overcrowded charity kitchens where they can wait for hours each day for just one meal.
"We don't ask if food is nutritious or not, if it's fresh or good; that' a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don't want my child to die hungry," one parent told the aid group.
Another described sending their son to wait in line for drinking water "for hours and he had to walk long distances."
"With the relentless bombardment and danger lurking everywhere, you don't know," said the parent. "You may send your child to bring water only for him to return in a body bag. Every day is like this here."
OCHA has reported that 92% of infants and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are not meeting their nutrient requirements, while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a statement Friday warning that malnutrition among children is on the rise across the enclave.
"More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year," said Catherine Russell, executive director UNICEF. "Hundreds more children in desperate need of treatment are not able to access it due to the insecurity and displacement."
"For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness, and death—nothing can justify this," Russell added.
One doctor at Al-Rantissi pediatric hospital in Gaza City told Amnesty that healthcare workers have observed "the impact of the hunger on the children who come here to receive treatment... You recommend that the parent give the child specific attention, specific food, and you know that what you are recommending is an impossibility."
The two-month mark of the current siege came as the International Court of Justice held public hearings this week on Israel's humanitarian obligations in Gaza. The ICJ has previously ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave.
Amnesty argued that the "cruel and inhumane siege" offers "further evidence of Israel's genocidal intent in Gaza."
"Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction," Erika Guevara Rosas said. "For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable."
Mohamad Safa, CEO and representative to the U.N. for the non-governmental organization Patriotic Vision, emphasized that the crisis that is gripping Gaza is "not famine," but rather "forced starvation."
""Forced starvation is an act of genocide," he said.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, repeated her call for an arms embargo on Israel, which counts the U.S. as the largest international funder of its military.
"The government of Israel is starving Gaza to death," said Tlaib. "It's a war crime to use starvation as a weapon. The only way to end this genocide is with an arms embargo. Time for my colleagues to end their silence."
Guevara Rosas accused the international community, especially Israel's allies, of "contemptible failure to live up to their legal responsibilities to prevent and bring an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza."
"These states' decades of inaction helped establish pervasive impunity for Israel's persistent violations and it is now exacting an unprecedented toll of death, destruction, and suffering on Palestinians," said Guevara Rosas. "States must take action to render Israel's violations against Palestinians politically, diplomatically, and economically unsustainable—the siege on Gaza must end now."
