Day 586 - Famine in Gaza? UN-linked group admits data not strong

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Legal reporter Jeremy Sharon and news editor Amy Spiro join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

Yesterday, the United Nations-linked Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) organization said in a “Special Snapshot” briefing that “the Gaza Strip is still confronted with a critical risk of famine,” and that “the entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people [one in five] facing starvation.” Israel has accused IPC of a “lack of transparency” with regards to the source of its data, and it said the IPC’s Special Snapshot failed to take into account “the massive volume of aid, especially food, that entered Gaza during the ceasefire.” Sharon weighs in.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Tuesday ordered the military to begin sending conscription orders to all draft-age members of the ultra-Orthodox community at the start of the next recruitment cycle in July. How much authority does she have and will anything change?

President Isaac Herzog on Monday became the first foreign leader to be hosted by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, just six days after he took the helm of Germany’s government, with Berlin and Jerusalem marking 60 years of strong diplomatic ties. Spiro was there and reports back.

Singers from 37 countries are now in Basel, Switzerland, for the annual Eurovision Song Contest this week. We learn about Israel's candidate Yuval Raphael and some of the challenges she faces.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Food security NGO warns of ‘critical’ famine risk in Gaza; Israel says study ‘flawed’

Attorney general urges conscription of all draft-age Haredim starting this summer

In Berlin, Herzog lauds 60 years of German-Israel ties, even as Gaza war casts shadow

Eurovision kicking off in Basel with glitz, schmaltz and little love for Israel

Israel’s Yuval Raphael and her team met by protests, threat as Eurovision week kicks off

After surviving Nova, Israel’s Eurovision hopeful is ready to ‘give my dreams a chance’

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: Palestinians line up to get a ration of hot food from a charity kitchen set up at the Islamic University campus in Gaza City on May 12, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing. Today is Wednesday, May 14th, day 586 of the war.
0:10.5	Amanda Borschelle, Don, here with our legal reporter, Jeremy Sharon, and reporter and editor, Amy Spiro.
0:16.0	Thank you both for joining me today. Good morning, Amanda.
0:19.0	Good morning. We will discuss the warnings of impending famine in the Gaza Strip and discuss how the data
0:25.6	was collected and how it compares to previous reports, also warning of impending famine.
0:31.6	Jeremy will also tell us about the Attorney General's instructions to the IDF to send
0:36.6	conscription notes to all eligible ultra-Orthodox
0:40.0	men. Amy is here just back from Berlin, where she was with President Isaac Herzog,
0:45.2	and she'll discuss this trip of 60 years of ties with Germany. And ahead of the second semifinal
0:53.2	in the Eurovision song contents, we will discuss all things, Yuval Rafael, and ahead of the second semifinal in the Eurovision song contents, we will discuss
0:56.3	all things Yuval Rafael and political at the Eurovision.
1:00.6	All this and much more when we're back.
1:08.0	Tolkien's trilogy was a perfect book to send to a POW.
1:13.7	Very well-defined good and evil.
1:16.9	And it was a great escape from the physical environment that we were in.
1:21.8	It's November 16, 1973, and we're at the military section of the Lode airport.
1:27.2	A red and white, DC-6 passenger plane lands, and out of it comes a stream of young men.
1:33.0	Ten men known collectively as Shvuyi Milchamitatasha, the POWs of the War of Attrition.
1:40.1	All of them had been held, most of the time together, in an Egyptian prison for more than three
1:45.2	and a half years. So it was very much a kibbutz. I want to draw your attention to a small,
1:51.7	tattered bag, Menachem Eini is holding. That brown knapsack actually held a treasure, a manuscript that would
1:58.6	make these men in their unlikely story momentarily famous.
	...

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