🌀 107 People Dead as Questions Intensify Over Handling of Disaster
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Authorities leading the search for victims of the devastating flooding in Texas deflected intensifying questions Tuesday about who was responsible for monitoring the weather that killed more than 100 people and warning that flash floods were barreling toward camps and homes.

Local officials in Kerr County, where 87 bodies have been found so far, said their priority was finding victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the floods inundated the state’s Hill Country. In total, at least 107 people have died.

During a sometimes tense news conference, officials faced questions about how quickly they responded and who was in charge.

“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,”

— said Lt Col Ben Baker, of the Texas Game Wardens.

Hope of finding survivors was increasingly bleak. Four days have passed since anyone was found alive in the aftermath of the floods, officials said Tuesday.

The search efforts benefited from improving weather. The storms that battered the Hill Country for the past four days began to lighten up, although isolated pockets of heavy rain were still possible.

#texas #dead #victims #flood #disaster

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🚨🌍Witkoff in Gaza. Will It Reduce the Disaster?

Witkoff has visited Gaza and been shown one of the controversial food distribution sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. 🕊🍞

Witkoff had earlier met Netanyahu amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring after months of the war. ⚠️🤝

His visit comes as Human Rights Watch described the sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as “death traps” that had become the scene of regular “bloodbaths”. 🩸🚫

The UN has said almost 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces attempting to reach the sites. 🇺🇳📉

The UN says that longstanding Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid had created an unpredictable environment, and that meant while a pause in fighting might allow more aid in, Palestinians are not confident aid will reach them. ❗️📦

Since it eased the blockade in late May, Israel has only allowed in a trickle of aid trucks for the UN, about 70 a day on average, according to Israel’s own figures. 🚚📊

That is far below the 500–600 trucks a day that UN agencies say are needed – the amount that entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. 🕊📦

While Netanyahu and other officials have claimed that there is “no hunger in Gaza” or that it is the fault of Hamas looting or the UN’s failings, incontrovertible evidence has been offered by the UN’s food security monitor of the spread of famine amid Israel’s choking of the entry of aid – a policy critics say amounts to the crime of using starvation as a weapon. 🍽🔒⚖️

According to the White House, the visit by Witkoff, accompanied by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, was aimed at finding ways to speed deliveries to Gaza. 🇺🇸🕊

“The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters. 📝🗣

#witkoff #gaza #netanyahu #disaster

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