Four killed as hordes of Palestinians storm UN warehouse in search for food
Reports indicated that four people died, two shot dead and two crushed by crowds, and several more were injured in the incident in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
'Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve,' WFP said in a statement.
The deaths came a day after a crowd was fired upon while overrunning a new aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip set up by an Israeli and US-backed foundation, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding 48 others, Gaza's Health Ministry said.
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Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour broke down in tears as he described the suffering of children in Gaza. Video: Reuters
The Red Cross Field Hospital said the wounded from that scene included women and children with gunshot wounds.
People broke through the fences around the distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, and an Associated Press journalist heard Israeli tank and gunfire, and saw a military helicopter firing flares.
Earlier, UN official Ajith Sunghay had said 47 Palestinians were injured, mostly by gunfire, at the hub set up by an Israeli and US-backed foundation outside Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah.
It was not yet known whether the death and injuries were caused by Israeli forces, private contractors or others. The foundation said its military contractors had not fired on the crowd but 'fell back' before resuming aid operations. Israel said its troops nearby had fired warning shots.
The distribution hub outside Rafah was opened the day before by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.
The UN and other humanitarian organisations have rejected the new system, saying it will not be able to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that 'there was some loss of control momentarily' at the distribution point, adding that 'happily, we brought it under control'.
He repeated that Israel plans to move Gaza's entire population to a 'sterile zone' at the southern end of the territory while troops fight Hamas elsewhere.
Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli blockade pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.
Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu said Israel has killed senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, apparently confirming his death in a recent air strike in Gaza.
Speaking before parliament, Mr Netanyahu included Mr Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed in Israeli strikes.
Mohammed Sinwar is the brother of Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds of Hamas's October 7th attack, who was killed by Israeli forces last year.
In a separate development, Israel said it had carried out air strikes on the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, after Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired several missiles at the country in recent days, without causing casualties.
The Israeli military said it destroyed aircraft used by the rebels.
Israel last struck the airport in Sanaa on May 6th, destroying the airport's terminal and leaving its runway riddled with craters. Some flights resumed to Sanaa on May 17th. - Agencies
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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Eight seeking food in Gaza among at least 18 killed by Israeli fire
Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of at least 18 people by Israeli fire on Saturday as Palestinians endured severe risks in their search for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. Eight of those killed had been seeking food. Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid on Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw many others lying on the ground bleeding. 'It's the same daily episode,' Mr Youssef said. READ MORE In response to questions about several witness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four sites, the GHF media office said 'nothing [happened] at or near our sites'. The episode came a day after US officials visited one site and the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called GHF's distribution 'an incredible feat'. International outrage has mounted as violence continues at sites where people are trying to access food and aid. 'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,' Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously.' Families of hostages protest Tel Aviv, Israel (Ariel Schalit/AP) The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in the besieged enclave. Israel's near 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some two million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people. From May 27th to July 31st, 859 people were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published on Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys. Israel and GHF have said they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three whose bodies were transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded. Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people. The dead include two brothers and a relative who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis. [ An Irish surgeon in Gaza: I have seen tiny bodies ripped apart, children eating grass Opens in new window ] Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, families of Israeli hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week. US president Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them a day after visiting Gaza and a week after walking away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe. Of the 251 hostages who were abducted when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, about 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society. The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's ministry for health, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. -AP Famine unfolding in Gaza: 'Children are eating grass and weeds at the side of the road' Listen | 23:23
RTÉ News
10 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Mood shifts on Israel-Gaza, but will it bring change?
There's no doubt the mood has shifted on the Israel-Gaza war. In the past week, three powerful G7 nations - France, the UK and Canada – announced their intention to recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September. That means four of the five permanent members of the Security Council - the UN's highest decision-making body - will join the more than 140 member states that already recognise Palestine, leaving the United States diplomatically isolated on the issue. With pressure mounting over starvation in Gaza, the United Nations held a major conference this week aimed at reviving the "two-state solution" for Israel and Palestine, a decades-old idea favoured by most of the world, but largely written off as dead in the water - until now. Boycotting the two-day event, the Israeli ambassador called it "a circus" while the US State Department said it was "unproductive and untimely". But even here, in the US, where support for Israel has been an unshakeable article of faith across the political spectrum, but especially in the Republican Party, key allies of President Donald Trump have begun to dissent. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA congresswoman from Georgia, took to X to voice her opposition to American policy on Israel. "It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza," she wrote. That made her the first Republican in Congress to call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide. A handful of Democrats have already used that term. Previously, Ms Taylor Greene introduced an amendment to cut funding for Israel's missile defence system – although that failed to garner any real support in Washington. But outside of Congress, fellow MAGA leaders - including the former White House strategist Steve Bannon and the right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson - have been damning of US policy in the Middle East, seeing it at odds with their "America First" doctrine. Mr Bannon – though still a staunch supporter of Israel – has little time for the current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he once called a "bald-faced liar". Mr Carlson criticised US aid to Israel, arguing the money would be better spent at home to tackle the opioid epidemic, among other domestic crises. He also slammed the recent Israeli airstrike on a Catholic Church in Gaza City. "They're not allowed to use my tax dollars to bomb churches," he told a US podcast. "I'll put up with a lot of stuff, but I don't understand how any Christian leader in the United States can sit by and not say something about that," he said. Scepticism of American involvement in "forever wars" is certainly a hallmark of the MAGA movement. Indeed, last year, ahead of the election that returned Mr Trump to power, I reported from his rally at New York's iconic Madison Square Gardens. During an Israel-focused speech beamed onto the giant outdoor screen, a man in the crowd shouted, "why are you talking about Israel – what about America?". In another post on X this week, Ms Greene pressed that case. "Most Americans that I know don't hate Israel and we are not antisemitic at all," she wrote. "We are beyond fed up with being told that we have to fix the world's problems, pay for the world's problems, and fight all the world's wars while Americans are struggling to survive even though they work every day". Then there is President Trump himself, who this week made headlines when he contradicted Mr Netanyahu's denial of starvation in Gaza. Asked if he agreed with Mr Netanyahu's assessment, Mr Trump said: "Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry". "They have to get food and safety right now," he added. The following day, a UN-backed report found that the "worst-case" famine scenario was unfolding across Gaza. Mr Trump dispatched his Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to inspect aid distribution sites run by American contractors under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The GHF sites, set up to replace UN aid distribution networks which the US and Israel said were hijacked by Hamas, have become the scene of near-daily mass killings of starving Palestinians, prompting international outrage. The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, co-chairing this week's conference, called it a "bloodbath". Last weekend, a group of Democratic senators wrote to the US Secretary of State Marc Rubio urging him to "immediately cease" all US funding for GHF and resume support for UN-led operations, with increased oversight. Adding to the pressure, a former US contractor with GHF gave an interview to the BBC saying that in his entire career, he had "never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population". Anthony Aguilar, a United States Army veteran, dismissed by the GHF as a disgruntled ex-employee, continued to speak out on US and international media platforms. Gaza aid today, he said, was like The Hunger Games. 'Turning point' With the mood apparently shifting in Washington and across the world, diplomats gathered for the UN's two-state solution conference this week feeling like the momentum was behind them. "It can and must serve as a decisive turning point," the UN Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks. "One that catalyses irreversible progress towards ending the occupation and realising our shared aspiration for a viable two-state solution," he said. The sentiment was echoed over the following two days and the conference's final declaration won more support than diplomats initially expected. The ambitious seven-page document called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, recognition of Palestine by countries that have not yet done so, normalisation of relations with Israel, the disarmament of Hamas, and a commitment to a political solution with the Palestinian Authority, subject to major reforms in control of Gaza and the West Bank. Significantly, it was the first time a UN document, signed by Arab nations, officially condemned the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023. But two critical players – Israel and the United States – were not there. In their absence, was this a case of the UN shouting into the void? I asked Mary Robinson, former president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at a news conference on Monday. She said that she felt real pressure in the conference room that the world had to move forward. "I think that can't be ignored, even by a powerful United States supporting Israel, the current Israeli government," she said, adding, "they particularly can't ignore the widespread sense now of an unfolding genocide and the starvation of children, of women, pregnant women". This could be the point of realisation, she said, that the US "is becoming complicit in a genocide". "That could be enough," she said. It is certainly true that Americans' support for Israel's military campaign has waned. A recent Gallup poll showed just a third of US citizens polled backed Israel's actions in Gaza – the lowest since November 2023. It is also worth noting, as an aside, that New York could be on the brink of electing as mayor Zohran Mamdani – an outspoken critic of Israel's military assault on Gaza, who has said he would arrest Mr Netanyahu were he to come to the city. On Monday, the UN conference's co-chair Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, was upbeat about the prospects of finding common ground with the White House. After all, it was Mr Trump who brokered the Abraham Accords during his first term – a deal to normalise relations between Israel and the Arab states of United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. "I think we've all heard President Trump statements on many occasions that he is a man of peace, that he is someone who opposes war, and he is a humanitarian," Mr bin Farhan Al Saud told reporters at the conference. He said he believed US engagement, especially the engagement of President Trump, could be a "catalyst for an end to the immediate crisis in Gaza and potentially a resolution of the Palestinian Israeli conflict In the long term". Saudi Arabia's eventual sign-up to the accords was always the big prize for Mr Trump. But the Saudi foreign minister made it clear this week that there would be no negotiation on the matter, without an end to the war and the establishment of a Palestinian State. The Saudis certainly have a good deal of leverage in Washington. But then, so does Mr Netanyahu. Some experts remain sceptical that the shift in mood will yield any real change. "I think we've reached a turning point in terms of perceptions of the war, and I think a tipping point in the coverage of the catastrophe," Michael Hanna, US Programme Director at the International Crisis Group, an NGO aimed at conflict prevention. "I'm not yet sure that that is going to fully translate into a change in policy," he added. He said there was always a gulf between public opinion and the political class in the US. "That gap is shrinking in some respects - we see a rise in criticism," he said. "Again, criticism is not the same as policy shift". Ms Greene, for example, was largely alone in Congress on the Republican side, he said. Indeed, while the week started with Mr Trump sympathising with the plight of hungry Palestinians, by Thursday, he was issuing barely veiled threats against Canada over its intention to recognise a Palestinian State. The State Department also announced sanctions against the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organisation on Thursday, which means members will be unable to travel to the US for the UN General Assembly in September. As for diplomatic isolation at the UN, that is something the US is prepared to bear, Mr Hanna told RTÉ News. "It is notable when the isolation also encompasses other Western members of the permanent five, UK and France, so maybe it's magnified isolation. "But the US has been willing to endure that isolation for a very long time, so it's not clear that that is particularly uncomfortable," he said. A lot hinges on President Trump's own views of course, and it is anyone's guess what he will decide next. His approach to the Middle East has been "all over the map," Mr Hanna said. There have been moments of tension between Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu, he added. "There were direct contacts with Hamas, which I think shocked the Israelis," he said, "then the U-turn on the Yemen campaign". Mr Trump abruptly declared an end to the bombing of Houthi rebel group positions in May. "And then, of course, then another big shift on intervention in Iran," he said in reference to the US joining Israel's bombing campaign of Iran's nuclear sites in a surprise move in June. The flip-flopping continued this week, when President Trump initially said he had "no view" on the matter, when the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the UK's intention to recognise the State of Palestine. But within hours, Mr Trump had labelled recognition "a reward for Hamas". Amid all the rhetoric and noise, Mr Hanna said, the point is that there is "still no ceasefire in Gaza".
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Is the White House ready to demand an end to Netanyahu's campaign of starvation in Gaza?
Throughout June, CNN offered previews of its deep-dive documentary of the 40th anniversary of Live Aid. The first part was broadcast on July 13th and in the weeks since, the retrospective has been accompanied with disturbing contemporary reportage and footage of the horrific scenes of starvation and mass hunger afflicting people in bombed-out Gaza . This was the first week that the humanitarian crisis, and the shocking realisation that thousands of children are starving and dying while food and aid languishes nearby, has become a dominant news story in the United States. Since Donald Trump took office, Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been welcomed and feted in the White House three times. The change in policy, ideology and energy between the Biden and Trump administrations is day and night. Yet both administrations share, to this point, a willingness to bend to Netanyahu's every whim and to ignore his state-sponsored atrocities. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently presented US president Donald Trump with a copy of a letter he sent to the Nobel committee recommending Trump for the peace prize. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images Just weeks ago, in a theatrical gesture much of the world found stomach-churning, Netanyahu, sitting across from president Trump ahead of dinner, presented his host with a copy of a letter he sent to the Nobel committee recommending Trump for the peace prize. READ MORE But this week, Trump broke with Netanyahu's conviction that there is no starvation in Gaza and that Hamas are issuing misleading reports. 'Based on television. . . those children look very hungry,' Trump said. 'But we're giving a lot of money and a lot of food, and other nations are now stepping up. Some of those kids are – that's real starvation stuff. I see it and you can't fake that.' It is tempting to believe that Trump, an avid consumer of television news shows, was exposed to much stronger and disturbing reports on Gaza during his five-day visit to Scotland than he had previously absorbed while flicking through the news networks in the White House. Belatedly, Trump seems to have realised, like Biden before him, that he has been played by Israel's prime minister, who has repeatedly demonstrated little interest in ending the conflict. If Russian president Vladimir Putin has proven hostile towards Trump's wish – and election campaign vow – of a swift resolution to the war with Ukraine, Netanyahu has been in turns ingratiating and contemptuous, taking unflagging US support for granted. On Wednesday, Trump dispatched Steve Witkoff , his diplomatic envoy, to Israel to pressurise Netanyahu on what is now being described as a famine. Trump returned to Washington from Scotland to find political representatives on the hard right and left are speaking in chorus. A demonstrator participates in a solidarity rally for Gaza in Paris on Thursday. Photograph: Mohammed Badra/EPA The Independent senator Bernie Sanders forced a set of resolutions to block the $675 million sale of bombs and guidance kits and automatic rifles to the Israeli government. 'Course he's lying,' Sanders said of Netanyahu's denials on CNN during the week. 'He's a disgusting liar. Israel had a right to defend itself from the terrible Hamas attack , but I think everyone understands that in the last two and a half years they have been waging a brutal, horrific, almost unprecedented type of war not just against Hamas but against the Palestinian people,' he said, citing the Gaza health ministry figures of 60,000 dead and 140,00 injured, most of whom he said, are 'women, children and the elderly'. 'We cannot continue providing military aid to the extremist racist Netanyahu government that is starving the children of Gaza.' But Sanders stopped short of agreeing that the word 'genocide' is applicable to the failure to deliver the emergency food and aid to Gazans. Instead, it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the Maga Republicans' most strident, conservative voices, who used that phrase. She was responding to Randy Fine, the recently elected Florida Republican congressman who last year labelled Ireland as an 'anti-Semitic country' over its support of the Palestinian people. Samah Matar holds her six-year-old son Yousef, who is suffering from severe malnutrition due to Israel's blockade of food into Gaza. Photograph: Saher Alghorra/The New York Times 'I can only imagine how Florida's 6th district feels now that their Representative, that they were told to vote for, openly calls for starving innocent people and children,' Taylor-Greene wrote. 'It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza. But a Jewish US Representative calling for the continued starvation of innocent people and children is disgraceful. His awful statement will actually cause more antisemitism.' Taylor-Greene's sharp criticism has been echoed elsewhere within the Maga movement, not least through the podcast megaphones of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Their perspective has not gone unnoticed in Israel, with an opinion piece written in June by Dr Judah Isseroff in the Israeli daily publication, Haaretz, noting that 'while Carlson's stances on immigration, vaccines and Russia are core elements of an emergent right-wing coalition, the criticism of Israel that he amplifies on his podcast has a level of cross-over potential that far outstrips the appeal of mass deportations or Covid revisionism. 'That is because Carlson's views coincide with those of increasingly large numbers of American Jews. According to two surveys last year, nearly a third of American Jews – and more than 40 per cent of American Jewish teens – agreed that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. In light of Israel's escalating activity in the Strip, those numbers are likely higher today than they were in 2024. It is clear that Binyamin Netanyahu takes the support of Donald Trump and the US completely for granted. Photograph:'As I see it, Carlson's real significance is actually more theological than political. I don't think we're likely to soon find Carlson marching arm-in-arm with Gaza campus activists at Columbia University. Instead, Carlson's platforming of Israel-critical Jews actually augurs a serious scrambling of relations between Jews and Christians in the United States.' Perhaps, but at congressional level, there is little to suggest that Netanyahu has any immediate cause for alarm about a suspension of arms and support or a sea-change in baseline support. A significant minority may be experiencing nausea at the sudden proliferation of images of starving Gazans. Still, the vote on Sanders's resolution- the third such motion he has brought – failed in the Senate by 27-70. It was significant increase on support among Democratic senators without ever threatening the status quo. Over a year has passed since Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate minority leader and highest ranking Jewish political leader in US history, gave a speech warning that Israel was at the risk of becoming a 'pariah' under Netanyahu's leadership, and he called for an election of new officials there. But this week, Schumer voted to continue to supply artillery to Israel: the protection of the state cannot, for Schumer, be compromised by objections to Netanyahu. Nor can the atrocities inflicted by Hamas militants on innocent Israelis on October 7th, 2023, be forgotten. When Netanyahu gave his address after a bipartisan invitation from Congress last week, at least 38 elected Democratic representatives announced they would boycott it. A few empty seats, then, but Netanyahu, basking in the afterglow of the successful joint Israel-US strikes on Iran nuclear facilities, still enjoyed a prolonged standing ovation before House speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged the 'distinct honour' of introducing the guest. 'For the forces of civilisation to triumph,' Netanyahu told them, 'America and Israel must stand together', provoking another standing ovation. He knew he was among friends – from both sides of the House – and had every reason to believe, in that moment, that the historical alliance will withstand whatever moral queasiness US politicians may feel about the images of dying Palestinian children. And while president Trump has voiced his unease at the images of malnourished and starving children, on Thursday morning he posted on Truth Social his stated position that the 'fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages'. A man carries the body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike, ahead of a funeral procession in Gaza City. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images Asked during his meeting with Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, if he supported Britain's pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood unless a ceasefire is in place by September, Trump said that he saw the plan as 'rewarding Hamas'. On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described Witkoff's meeting with Netanyahu as 'very productive' and she confirmed that he would spend Friday inspecting the food distribution sites and speaking with Gazans living through what has become a ceaseless nightmare. He will then brief president Trump on advised next steps. 'President Trump is a humanitarian with a big heart and that's why he sent special envoy Witkoff to the region, in an effort to save lives and end this crisis,' Leavitt said. With Hamas refusing to negotiate a path towards a ceasefire until the unfolding food shortage stand-off is resolved, and Israel's leader remaining unrepentant, many lives may hinge of the persuasive power of Witkoff's report to Trump. It remains to be seen whether the sudden prominence of the Gaza plight in US news coverage is just a temporary conscience salver which will, in a week or a fortnight, become obscured by domestic and economic issues again. Or whether the White House, and Trump, is at last ready to demand an end to Binyamin Netanyahu's clear-eyed campaign of death by one means or another.
