Today's News Headlines: Labor commits to $20 million in aid to Gaza
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News.com.au
27 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Israel wants world attention on hostages held in Gaza
Israel said Monday the plight of hostages held in Gaza should top the global agenda, after Palestinian militants released videos showing them looking emaciated, heightening fears for their lives after nearly 22 months in captivity. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a press briefing ahead of the UN Security Council session on the issue, said that "the world must put an end to the phenomenon of kidnapping civilians. It must be front and centre on the world stage". Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing Gaza war, 49 are still held in the Palestinian territory, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. The UN session was called after Palestinian militant group Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad published last week three videos showing hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated, causing deep shock and distress in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under mounting international pressure to halt the war, said on Sunday he was "shocked" by the "horror videos of our precious sons". Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which oversaw past hostage releases during short-lived truces, to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli captives. Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it was willing to allow Red Cross access to the hostages in exchange for permanent humanitarian access for food and medicine into all of Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned famine was unfolding. The ICRC said in a statement it was "appalled by the harrowing videos" and reiterated its "call to be granted access to the hostages". - 'Only through a deal' - Netanyahu's government has faced repeated accusations by relatives of hostages and other critics of not doing enough to rescue the captives. "Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to ruin," said a campaign group representing families of the captives. In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that "for 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back." "The truth must be said: expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate mortal danger." Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure an elusive truce. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to call on the government to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war. "It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel," the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday. The war, nearing its 23rd month, "is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity," said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service, in a video released to accompany the letter. The letter argued that the Israeli military "has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas's military formations and governance." "The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home," it added. - 'We are starving' - Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN. Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 15 Palestinians, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza. In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point. "We are starving... He went to bring flour for his family," she said. "The flour is stained with blood. We don't want the flour anymore. Enough!" Further south, in Deir el-Balah, Palestinian man Abdullah Abu Musa told AFP his daughter and her family were killed in an Israeli strike. Decyring the attack on "young children", he said that "perhaps the world will wake up -- but it never will".
The Australian
an hour ago
- The Australian
US promises Gaza food plan after envoy visit
President Donald Trump's special envoy promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting a US-backed distribution centre on Friday, as the United Nations said Israeli forces had killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians waiting for aid over the past two months. The visit by US envoy Steve Witkoff came as a report from global advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused Israeli forces of presiding over "regular bloodbaths" close to aid points run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza had been killed since May 27 -- 105 of them in the last two days of July. "Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," the UN office said, breaking down the death toll into 859 killed near GHF sites and 514 along routes used by UN and aid agency convoys. Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza, in an online post accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a GHF distribution centre. The visit intended to give Trump "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza," Witkoff said. Trump echoed this in a phone call with US news site Axios touting a plan to "get people fed". "We want to help people. We want to help them live. We want to get people fed. It is something that should have happened long time ago," Trump said according to Axios. - 'Gunning them down' - The US president did not say whether his plan would involve reinforcing GHF or a whole new mechanism, the report said. The GHF largely sidelined the longstanding UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza just as Israel in late May began easing a more than two-month aid blockade that exacerbated existing shortages. The foundation said it had delivered its 100-millionth meal in Gaza during the visit by Witkoff and US ambassador Mike Huckabee. Gaza's civil defence agency said 22 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid. In its report on the GHF centres, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of using starvation as a weapon of war. "Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families," said HRW's associate crisis and conflict director, Belkis Wille. "US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths." The Israeli military said in response that the GHF worked independently, but that troops operated near aid sites "to enable the orderly delivery of food" while trying to "minimise... any friction between the civilian population" and its forces. The military accused Hamas of trying to prevent food distribution, and said it was conducting a review of reported deaths. Witkoff on Thursday held talks with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to destroy Hamas and rescue hostages seized in the Palestinian group's October 2023 attack that triggered the war. But Netanyahu is under mounting international pressure to end the bloodshed that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry, and threatened many more with famine. - Hostage video - Following his discussions with Witkoff, Netanyahu met Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who warned that "the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination." Wadephul urged Israel "to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality". In an investigative report published on Friday, British public broadcaster the BBC said it had gathered accounts from witnesses, medics and other sources of more than 160 children shot in the war, including 95 hit in the head or chest, some by Israeli forces. Responding in a statement to AFP, the Israeli military said any "intentional harm to civilians, and especially to children, is strictly prohibited" by international law and the army's orders. Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. The retaliatory Israeli offensive has killed at least 60,249 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence and other parties. Of the 251 people taken hostage during the Hamas attack on southern Israel, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli military. After Witkoff's Gaza visit, the armed wing of Hamas released a short online video showing 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel. burs-dc/ami
The Australian
an hour ago
- The Australian
Anthony Albanese to announce $31m mobile TAFE centres during visit to the 2025 Garma Festival
Anthony Albanese will promise mobile TAFE centres to train Indigenous students in remote communities, with the Prime Minister set to make the announcement when he attends the Garma Festival in remote Arnhem Land this weekend. The $31m commitment, to be delivered alongside state and territory governments, will allow teachers to travel Australia using utes and trailers to train students in construction, mining, agriculture, carpentry, plumbing and community work, to ensure Indigenous people don't have to leave their communities to access that training. 'So that instead of communities relying on drive-in, drive-out workers to build and maintain the new homes we are delivering … locals get that training,' he is expected to say on Saturday. 'And instead of people having to move away from home to prepare for a career in mining or agriculture, construction or the care economy, we will bring skills and jobs to communities. 'Hands-on training, on country.' Anthony Albanese attending the Garma Festival in northeast Arnhem Land in 2024. Picture: Yothu Yindi Foundation/Nina Franova via NewsWire Labor will also promise $75m to help resource-strapped native title holders negotiate land use deals, to 'secure better deals, drive faster approvals and deliver a real and lasting economic legacy for communities. 'We must end the stalemate that arises when native title organisations with little in the way of back of house, or legal and commercial expertise, are expected to negotiate with multinational firms,' he will say. 'This is the tone and the standard we want this partnership to set, from the very start – pragmatic action that brings economic development, ownership and equity to communities. 'Not doubling-up on advice, or getting in the way of processes that are working.' In what will be his fourth time attending the large-scale event as Prime Minister, Mr Albanese will say that Labor's second term of government will be focused on 'delivery', with the government shifting focus to boosting economic empowerment among Indigenous Australians following the failure of the Voice referendum. It also coincides with this week's release of the Closing the Gap report which revealed Australia was only on track to meet four out of 19 targets, with efforts to reduce rates of Indigenous adult imprisonment, suicide rates and removing children in out-of-home care, and bring them in line with non-Indigenous peoples worsening. Australia was, however, expected to reach its targets to boost Indigenous preschool enrolments, employment and two land rights goals. Although Mr Albanese is expected to concede that there is 'more to do,' he will urge that 'closing the gap is a challenge all of us must meet' and took aim at the 'culture wars' instigated by the Coalition. This follows a successful motion at the WA Liberal Party state conference, which was supported by high-profile Liberal senator Michaelia Cash, and called for Welcome to Country ceremonies to be banned at official events. Mr Albanese will use his speech at Garma to call for an end to the culture wars saying they 'are a dry gully'. Picture: Yothu Yindi Foundation/Leicolhn McKellar via NewsWire Instead Mr Albanese will call on people to push back against people who 'choose the cheap politics of division over the patient work of lasting change or who seek to turn the grace and generosity of a welcome to country into a political weapon'. 'Culture wars are a dry gully. They offer us nothing, they lead us nowhere,' he will say. 'The way forward is to invest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, trust in their aspirations and draw from their knowledge because when we lay these strong foundations together, there is no limit to what we can build.' New Liberal leader Sussan Ley will not attend the Garma Festival. Instead, shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser – who stood down from the front bench in 2023 because of his support of the Voice – will represent the Coalition. Ms Ley will, instead, travel to the Kimberley in Western Australia for a four-day listening tour with Indigenous communities and organisations. The Opposition Leader will also be joined by Coalition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Kerrynne Liddle and WA MP for Durack Melissa Price. Ms Ley said Mr Albanese had a 'personal obligation' to use his appearance at the Garma Festival to detail his government's plan to closing the gap. 'It is not good enough to just give speeches at festivals, we need to see his plan,' she said. 'Since the Voice Anthony Albanese has stepped back from Indigenous issues, that is not good enough. He led the referendum process, a process which was unsuccessful. So what is his path forward?' The four-day event, which started on Friday, will be the 25th anniversary of the Garma festival, which celebrates Yolngu culture – the name of Aboriginal peoples who inhabit northeastern Arnhem Land. The theme of this year's festival is 'rom ga waŋa wataŋu', or 'the law of the land, standing firm'. Read related topics: Anthony Albanese Jessica Wang NewsWire Federal Politics Reporter Jessica Wang is a federal politics reporter for NewsWire based in the Canberra Press Gallery. She previously covered NSW state politics for the Wire and has also worked at and Mamamia covering breaking news, entertainment, and lifestyle. @imjesswang_ Jessica Wang
