Charities call for end to Israeli-backed aid group as dozens more die in Gaza
At least seven Palestinians were killed seeking aid in southern and central Gaza between late Monday and early Tuesday.
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The deaths came after Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza earlier on Monday with air strikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that killed 23 as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.
Palestinians wounded while returning from one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centres (Mariam Dagga/AP)
The war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, called on Tuesday for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
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'Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,' the group said in a joint news release.
The call by the charities and NGOs was the latest sign of trouble for the GHF — a secretive US and Israeli-backed initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Donald Trump.
GHF started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade which has pushed Gaza's population of more than two million people to the brink of famine.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organisation said it has delivered more than 52 million meals over five weeks.
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Kidney patients sit amid the destruction caused by the Israeli army at Shifa Hospital (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
'Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,' the statement said.
'We are ready to collaborate and help them get their aid to people in need. At the end of the day, the Palestinian people need to be fed.'
Last month, the organisation said there had been no violence in or around its distribution centres and that its personnel had not opened fire.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed around the chaotic and controversial aid distribution programme over the past month.
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Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access the GHF hubs in hopes of obtaining aid.
The GHF is the linchpin of a new aid system that took distribution away from aid groups led by the UN.
The new mechanism limits food distribution to a small number of hubs under guard of armed contractors, where people must go to pick it up. Currently four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions.
Israel had demanded an alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The United Nations and aid groups deny there was significant diversion, and say the new mechanism allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and will not be effective.
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Displaced Palestinians flee Jabalia (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
The Israeli military said it had recently taken steps to improve organisation in the area.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.
Of the latest seven deaths by Israeli fire, three occurred in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, while four were killed in central Gaza.
More than 65 others were wounded, according to the Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties.
They were among thousands of starved Palestinians who gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route in central Gaza.
An 11-year-old girl was killed on Tuesday when an Israeli strike hit her family's tent west of Khan Younis, according to the Kuwait field hospital that received her body.
The UN Palestinian aid agency also said Israel's military struck one of its schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Monday. The strike caused no casualties but caused significant damage, UNRWA said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in two separate incidents.
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The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Trump's aid cuts and development: the global majority deserve justice, not charity
When one door closes, you would hope that another opens. As USAID was formally shut down on Monday, a once-in-a-decade development financing conference was kicking off in Seville. But while initially intended to move the world closer to its ambitious 2030 sustainable development goals, it now looks more like an attempt to prevent a reversal of the progress already made. A study published in the Lancet predicted that Donald Trump's aid cuts could claim more than 14 million lives by 2030, a third of them among children. For many poor countries, the scale of the shock would be similar to that of a major war, the authors found. More than four-fifths of the US agency's programmes have been cut, with surviving projects folded into the state department. The US was by far the world's largest donor to global development – though its contributions were a fraction of the G7 target of 0.7% of GDP. Yet the damage does not end there. Its move encouraged others to follow suit. The UK, Germany and France are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on defence. Oxfam says that the collective retrenchment by G7 nations is the biggest aid cut since 1960, with spending 26% lower in 2026 than it was last year. Don't expect China or the Gulf states to fill this gaping hole. It is not just grim news for aid recipients. It bodes ill for all. It would be naive to imagine that aid is a high‑mindedly altruistic endeavour. Just as conflict breeds hunger and poverty, so injustice and deprivation breed instability and a more dangerous world. Slashing health budgets also increases the risks of another global pandemic. Developing countries hoped that the UN- and Spanish-hosted International Conference on Financing for Development would at least see a willingness to tackle an international financial system stacked against the global majority. Instead, the US, UK, EU and others shamefully acted as blockers, watering down the language on a UN intergovernmental process to tackle the debt crisis. The US reportedly proposed 400 amendments across a multitude of issues to the conference's outcome document before pulling out entirely. Others will need to be held to their too-limited commitments. More than two-fifths of the global population live in low income countries which are in debt distress or close to it. Many poor African nations are spending more on debt financing than they do on health or education. Contrary to popular perception – and any sense of justice and decency – wealth is flowing from them to developed nations. The UN says that servicing debt cost developing countries $847bn last year, rising to $947bn this year. Yet developed countries are choosing to shore up an unfair global financial system. The keenness of the UK and others to focus on private sector‑oriented solutions looks like better news for the City than developing nations. The promise that private finance would turn 'billions to trillions' was enthusiastically promoted a decade ago, yet largely failed to materialise. Despite the enduring inequality, the last few decades saw extraordinary progress in areas such as cutting child mortality. For all their flaws, USAID-funded programmes alone saved almost 92 million lives over 20 years. We know that remarkable leaps in human wellbeing are possible. We will all regret it if, in this time of conflict and crisis, we slam the door shut on such advances and block out the call of justice.
The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Palestine Action spraying paint is not terrorism. As ministers abuse their powers, I feel a duty to speak out
Strongly worded emails are not doing it. Appeals to MPs are not doing it. Taking to the streets in our hundreds of thousands with banners and placards is not working. Elected representatives from every party in parliament have stood in the Commons and asked the government to act. Some government ministers themselves have condemned Israel's starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Every poll of public opinion shows that the nation demands we stop arming Israel, and wants to see an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. But none of these things are working. Keir Starmer and his cabinet remain impervious to all calls for humanitarian intervention, and Israel is still killing children in Gaza with the support of the British government. To proscribe as 'terrorist' a non-violent direct action group such as Palestine Action threatens the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, and of peaceful protest. Surely the government should only ever apply the Terrorism Act with the utmost restraint and precision. Otherwise it allows the state to repress civil liberties that have been dearly fought for and won, and which represent the bedrock of our democracy. Those civil liberties have already come under real and dangerous threat. The powers given to the police have incrementally increased to an alarming degree, owing in part to the Terrorism Act of 2000 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022. These have both led to the right of public protest being seriously eroded, and afforded the police much greater powers and significantly less accountability. We have for some time seen these powers being used to suppress lawful protest and to detain peaceful protesters. In addition, leaving aside its members, the proscription of Palestine Action will directly affect many other activists who are deeply concerned about the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Even to be seen to support PA's non-violent direct action will be to risk being criminalised. The government's response to embarrassing security breaches at RAF bases by Palestine Action seems disproportionate, and highlights, I think, the influence on them of vested interests. There has long been a campaign by senior rightwing politicians, arms company executives and pro-Israel lobby groups to shut down Palestine Action and have it proscribed. Lockheed Martin UK is a key manufacturer of parts for the F-35 fighter jets that have helped Israel flatten the Gaza Strip, kill more than 56,000 people and create more child amputees per capita than anywhere else in the world. The government ended direct sales to Israel of some weapons, but created an 'F-35 exemption' allowing sales of these parts to continue to reach Israel via the US, where the planes are assembled. The Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems also operates on UK soil, and our government has lucrative bilateral deals with the company. As far back as 2022 the then home secretary, Priti Patel, held a meeting with Martin Fausset, the CEO of Elbit Systems in the UK, to discuss how to deal with Palestine Action. The definition of terrorism as laid out in the Terrorism Act of 2000 is clear, and includes 'serious damage to property'. Does spraying red paint on to metal constitute serious damage? The condemnation of this spraying of red paint on to planes as expressed by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, does not appear to be matched by any equivalent condemnation by her of red blood sprayed on to the tented walls of Gaza. So yes, crimes concerning damage to property have been committed, but there are already laws in place to deal with them. Labelling these as terrorism only serves to deepen the UK government's complicity in the war crimes being committed in Palestine. In a further act of desperation, efforts have been made to try to undermine the motives of Palestine Action by making a tenuous link to Iran, with unnamed Home Office sources telling newspapers it is investigating the group's finances. Smear campaigns such as this are part of a wider policy by government to intimidate and clamp down on dissent. I have had a small taste of this myself. On 18 January, I attended a rally in Whitehall organised by Stop the War – and noticed immediately that the tactics of the police that day seemed to be markedly different. Present in their thousands, they were already kettling people at the start of the event, and behaving in a manner that seemed aggressive and provocative. The march to the BBC, which had been planned to protest against its coverage of the conflict, had been prohibited by the Met at short notice, and the gathering was confined to Whitehall. I was asked to join a group of about 12 people who would form a symbolic delegation, and request passage through police lines to reach the BBC. There we planned to lay flowers at the door. Reaching the police lines, after some hesitation and resistance, an officer allowed us through. Shortly after that, however, our progress was curtailed by another police line. It was here that I saw at close hand the disproportionate tactics used by police. I witnessed further vanloads of police arriving in the area, kettling peaceful protesters and making numerous arrests – 77 in total that day. Three weeks later I was sent a letter from the Met threatening me with charges under section 14 of the Public Order Act. I then faced a three-hour police interview, before being told after several weeks (and several thousand pounds of legal fees) that I would face no further action. Over the past 21 months, I have met many hundreds of people who come out – often travelling long distances – to protest against this genocide. Old people and young, people of every faith, race, generation and ethnic identity. They come in horror at the brutality being inflicted on the population of Gaza. And many of those in our midst are Jewish. But still we are accused by lobby groups of antisemitism. This I disregard; I am married to a Jewish man, whose mother was a refugee from Hitler's Vienna. She escaped just in time in 1938 as a refugee, and most of her family were subsequently wiped out in the Holocaust. My children define themselves as Jewish, and we have many beloved Jewish friends, all of whom are appalled by the activities of Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and the Israel Defense Forces. These Jewish friends are people driven by compassion, humanity and a sense of right and wrong that will not yield to intimidation. In Gaza, the world is watching the most heinous acts of violence that I have witnessed in my lifetime. It is as if the skin has been ripped off the face of humanity to reveal terrifying depths of sadism and depravity. I am intensely aware of this thought: I do not want to find myself at the end of my life looking back at this time regretting that I could have done something and didn't – that I was too frightened to speak out, or to act. Palestine Action and its supporters will have no such regrets. Our current British government, however, may well. Juliet Stevenson is an award-winning actor Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
British companies named and shamed by UN for profiting from Israeli ‘genocide'
British companies have been named and shamed by the United Nations, which has accused them of supporting a genocide carried out by Israel. Barclays, BP and a string of universities were listed by the UN in a report on Tuesday as entities benefitting from 'the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide'. The document was written Francesca Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Commenting, she said 'Genocide, it would seem, is profitable.' The move marks the first time the UN has focused in on private businesses for links to Israel's attacks on Gaza and its activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel's relationship with the UN continues to deteriorate due to its criticism of the Jewish state's conduct of its war and its blocking of humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees. The Israeli embassy in Geneva said the report was driven by the author's 'obsessive hate-driven agenda to delegitimize the existence of the State of Israel'. In the document, Ms Albanese wrote that BP was providing crude oil to the Jewish state and was granted a licence in March to explore gas resources in 'Palestinian maritime expanses illegally exploited by Israel'. Financial enterprises including Barclays were called out for investing in and underwriting Israeli government bonds, which the UN said was Israel's main source of revenue for its ballooning military spending. The University of Edinburgh was highlighted as one of many British higher education centres with ties to Israel. It said the Scottish Russell Group university had invested £25.5 million of its endowment in tech giants 'central to the Israeli surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction'. 'The university ranks among the most financially entangled institutions in the United Kingdom' as it also has partnerships with firms involved with the Israeli military, such as Italian aerospace and defence firm Leonardo SpA, the report read. The document focused on companies that have strengthened ties with Israel since October 2023, when it began attacks on Gaza. It identifies a range of companies, including arms manufacturers such as Israeli firms Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, as well as the US's Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defence contractor, for providing military hardware from drones to fighter jets. Major tech firms were also called out, including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Palantir, for providing a range of services and software such as digital and biometric surveillance, artificial intelligence for military operations and predictive policing technology. ' Repression of Palestinians has become progressively automated, with tech companies providing dual-use infrastructure to integrate mass data collection and surveillance, while profiting from the unique testing ground for military technology offered by the occupied Palestinian territory,' the report read. 'While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, the present report shows why the genocide carried out by Israel continues: because it is lucrative for many,' Ms Albanese wrote. 'The complicity exposed by the report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives.' Companies providing equipment such as bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure, such as Caterpillar, Hyundai and Volvo, were also named, as well as Keller Williams, a real estate firm, for developing and marketing properties in Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. Agriculture firms including Tnuva, owned by Chinese state-owned China Bright Food, were listed for sourcing products from Israeli settlements and for providing farming technology to support crop expansion in Palestinian areas. A number of global pension funds were also named for investing in firms alleged to be complicit in Israel's activities, as well as tourism companies, such as AirBnB and for listing accommodation in Occupied Palestinian Territories. Other energy firms mentioned include Chevron and Drummond from the US, and Switzerland's Glencore, which is used for electricity generation. BNP Paribas, Blackrock and Allianz were also attacked for, like Barclays, investing in Israeli government bonds. Sanction Israel? The document will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday and is likely to anger Israel, which dropped out of the Council in February citing 'ongoing and relenting institutional bias against Israel'. It makes several recommendations such as sanctions and a full arms embargo on Israel, as well as freezing the assets of 'individuals involved in activities that may endanger the Palestinians,'. Companies, it says, should cease business activities linked to human rights violations and international crimes against Palestinians and pay reparations to them, 'including in the form of an apartheid wealth tax along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa'. The report came after the UN issued a call for submissions last November to investigate businesses and entities involved in Israel's war crimes in Palestinian territory. Some companies identified have earlier been highlighted by human rights groups and research organisations for alleged complicity in Israel's war crimes. Glencore, Chevron and Volvo rejected the allegations. Blackrock declined to comment. A university spokesperson said an investment advisory group had been established to 'inform the University's approach to responsible investment, carefully considering the diverse perspectives and concerns of our community.' 'We unequivocally condemn the violence and suffering resulting from events in Israel and Gaza in recent years. While our commitment as a global institution to act in accordance with our values is unwavering, it is essential that any actions taken are measured, responsible and fully consultive.' The death toll in Gaza since October 2023 stands at more than 56,000 people, with an additional 132,200 injured, according to the local health ministry.
