Dozens killed in Gaza after trying to receive aid at distribution site for a third day in a row
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Washington Post
14 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Monday briefing: Trump's firing of a labor official; Texas Democrats; Gaza aerial images; Russian volcano; and more
The Trump administration defended the firing of a labor statistics chief. Texas Democrats fled the state in an attempt to block a change to election maps. A Post photographer captured rare aerial images of Gaza from an aid flight. Police are searching for a former U.S. soldier accused of killing four people.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
As Israel faces blame for the hunger crisis in Gaza, UN's own data shows most of its aid is looted
New data published last week by the U.N. agency UNOPS shows that most of its aid entering the war-torn Gaza Strip has been looted inside the Palestinian territory. UNOPS provides management services for the world body's own humanitarian operations. Despite this, condemnation of Israel over the hunger crisis in Gaza has been ramping up, prompting an increasing number of Western governments to declare intentions to recognize a Palestinian state as punishment, and leading some media outlets to totally tune out the role both international humanitarian organizations and Hamas, whose October 2023 mass terror attack in Israel started the nearly two-year-old war, have played in this catastrophe. "Nobody is able to have nuance in this conflict or hold multiple truths and that's part of why everybody from journalists to NGOs to U.N. officials, the pro-Palestine people, activists and advocates, parrot the same talking points that there's no aid theft and that everything is Israel's fault," Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital. Alkhatib, a Gaza-born American, said that while the U.N. and other NGOs were "playing politics" by ignoring their own failures so as not to jeopardize funding and because they are terrified of Hamas, Israeli leaders were also "exaggerating" claims about Hamas being the only ones to loot the aid. A close observer of events in Gaza, he described a chain of thievery and extreme price hikes perpetrated by civilians and merchants that have all contributed to the misery there. He added that statements by some Israeli government ministers about cutting off aid to force Gazans out of the territory have not helped either. "Their statements have become the story under which nothing else will fit… no amount of evidence, no amount of clarification, no amount of nuance is going to come anywhere near to grabbing that much attention," Alkhatib said. Farhan Aziz Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, confirmed to Fox News Digital that some aid had been stolen but said it was because so few supplies had entered Gaza in recent months that "people facing hunger have resorted to offloading supplies directly from our convoys," he said. "We understand the frustration, but let's be clear: this isn't our system. It's what happens when aid is squeezed through too few routes after months of deprivation," he claimed, adding "only a steady, reliable flow of aid and commercial supplies can restore people's belief that aid will arrive and allow for safe, orderly distributions," he claimed. Information posted on the website of UNOPS, the U.N. Office for Project Services, shows that around 87%, or 1,753 of the 2,013 aid trucks that entered Gaza since May 19 did not reach their final destinations, with the aid being stolen either "peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors." The data, which showed that a record 90 trucks carrying some 1,695 tons of aid were looted on May 31 alone, comes as shocking photos of emaciated Palestinian children – some of which were later proven to be children with pre-existing health conditions used as propaganda by Hamas – have gone viral. The revelations about the U.N.'s faulty aid system also come amid worldwide condemnation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new U.S. and Israel-backed aid distribution mechanism, devised, in part, to prevent aid from falling into Hamas' hands. The U.N. has refused to cooperate with the GHF. The aid group announced on Sunday that it had delivered nearly 105 million meals to Gazans since it started operations in May. It also comes in sharp contrast to reports by some media outlets who chose to ignore evidence of Hamas stealing and reselling aid in order to fund its ongoing war – seemingly as a way to suggest that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war or committing "genocide." Israel has emphatically denied both claims. A recent article in the New York Times even went as far as reporting that there was "no proof" that Hamas had stolen U.N. aid, despite countless documented accounts, including from freed Israeli hostages who reported seeing stockpiles of U.N.-branded products inside Hamas tunnels. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that not only did human rights organizations and many media outlets base their faulty reports on information published by Gaza's Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas, they also did not "take the nature of Hamas seriously." "Hamas is not the most reliable source in the world," he said, adding that "the international media and other sources do not consider the interests of Hamas, or its strategy, and they do not seem to acknowledge that Hamas wants a chaotic situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas wants there to be many casualties among Palestinian civilians, because it serves their interests." "Just to listen to what Hamas leaders have been saying since October 7," Michael continued. "They have promised to repeat October 7 again and again, they have called on the Arab world to join the armed resistance against Israel and on the Arab public to pressure their regimes. "They have also said publicly, and loudly, that they have no problem sacrificing another 100,000 Palestinian civilians for the sake of the victory," he said. Yet the GHF has faced scrutiny and blame for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza amid daily reports by Hamas-backed bodies of civilian deaths at or near their aid distribution points and following chaotic images of people fighting over the food packages or sheltering from gunfire. The new agency has hit back, saying that Hamas, the U.N. and other international aid agencies, are just hoping the initiative fails so they can control all aid operations in Gaza. On Friday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited southern Gaza to inspect one of GHF's aid distribution sites. "Went into Gaza today & observed humanitarian food program by U.S. launched GHF. Hamas hates GHF b/c it gets food to ppl w/o it being looted by Hamas. Over 100 MILLION meals served in 2 months," Huckabee wrote in a post on X. David Makovsky, director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said blame for the crisis should not be placed on one party but that "by bringing the U.N.'s own records to bear we can level-set the conversation. "There is a whole debate about GHF, which will not be settled today," he noted. "Yet, in a humanitarian emergency crisis, feeding people should take absolute top priority and I think it is incumbent for the U.N. and GHF to work together to feed people. "I hope that by bringing in lots of food into Gaza you can help innocent suffering people and also dramatically bring down black market rates exploited by Hamas which they use to control their people," said Makovsky.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘I oppose genocide' : Meet the pensioners risking lengthy prison terms to support Palestine Action
In an interrogation room at just after 1am, 68-year-old grandmother-of-seven Marji Mansfield was sitting across from counterterrorism officers after being arrested at a pro-Palestine protest in central London. She had suffered days of poor sleep in anticipation of this eventuality. Now, an 'aggressive' man was asking her repeatedly if she sympathised with a terrorist organisation, leading her through an extensive list of questions about her politics and who she knew in Gaza. A few hours earlier, on the afternoon of 5 July, half a dozen officers had handcuffed the pensioner and hauled her off the ground and into a police van alongside her 73-year-old husband. The couple, who once described themselves as 'small-c conservatives', had travelled to the capital from near Chichester for the protest, declining to tell their children what they were about to do. It was only a day later that their son realised what had happened after he saw his mother on the news, suspended and flanked by the large group of officers. Mansfield had been following the conflict in the Middle East since the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014, but only became an active protester after former home secretary Suella Braverman described peaceful protests as 'hate marches' in October 2023. 'I have never been political or an activist. I was just an ordinary, middle-England person,' she says. 'But then I became outraged.' Mansfield says she was 'shocked' by the events of 7 October, when Hamas militants crossed the border into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, taking 251 more hostage. 'But the actions that subsequently followed, where entire families are being wiped out, I had to join those urging for a ceasefire now,' she adds. More than 60,000 Palestinians are believed to have been killed since Israel launched its retaliatory aerial and ground offensive in Gaza. Humanitarian organisations have warned that, with not nearly enough aid entering the territory, the 2.3 million residents of Gaza are now in effect being starved. Keir Starmer warned this week that Britain would recognise the Palestinian state if Israel did not end its 'appalling' war in Gaza. He urged Israel to work towards a ceasefire and a two-state solution. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Starmer of 'rewarding Hamas's monstrous terrorism'. Mansfield dismisses Starmer's move as having been 'performative rather than substantial'. Fighting her own battle for Gaza, the pensioner was arrested under Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding up a placard that said: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action'. Being charged under Section 12 carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. The protest group Palestine Action had just been proscribed as a terrorist organisation, after it claimed responsibility for activists spraying red paint on fighter jets at RAF Brize Norton. The proscription means it is illegal to support the group. It puts Palestine Action in the same legal ranks as Isis, al-Qaeda and Hamas, leading critics to accuse the government of heavy-handedness. Mansfield knew it was possible she would be arrested, but had no idea how the police would actually react when she and dozens of others held up placards in support of Palestine Action outside the Houses of Parliament. It was the first of what would become weekly protests, all of which resulted in arrests. As the police interview with an exhausted Mansfield drew to a close at around 2am, after more than 60 questions had been asked, the counterterrorism officer made one final remark. 'Look, even if you get hundreds of people, thousands of people, we're 30,000 strong,' Mansfield recalls him saying. 'We'll put all our resources, and not just police forces, into arresting and interrogating you.' Then he let the 'traumatised' pensioner go free, hundreds of miles from home. She had not been charged with a crime. A total of 385 MPs voted in favour of the unprecedented move to criminalise Palestine Action. Only 26 dissented. Announcing the vote, home secretary Yvette Cooper said that while free speech and the right to protest form 'the cornerstone of our democracy', Palestine Action was guilty of 'violence and serious criminal damage' that does not constitute 'legitimate protest'. As a result, Palestine Action was proscribed alongside a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation called Maniacs Murder Cult and a pro-Kremlin ethno-nationalist organisation that seeks to create a new Russian imperial state. Critics and human rights activists quickly accused the government of infringing on people's right to protest following the proscription of Palestine Action. In a letter to Cooper, the Network for Police Monitoring said: 'Misusing terrorism legislation in this way against a protest group sets a dangerous precedent, threatens our democratic freedoms, and would be a terrifying blow to our civil liberties.' Several United Nations human rights experts, meanwhile, said that criminal damage that does not endanger life is not 'sufficiently serious to qualify as terrorism'. On Wednesday, a judge ruled that Palestine Action would be allowed to challenge the Home Office in court over its proscription, but it could be months until a result. The outrage over the move has increased as more protesters are arrested. Private Eye editor Ian Hislop branded the arrest in Leeds on 19 July of 67-year-old Jon Farley, for holding up a printout of the magazine's front page that questioned the proscription, as 'mind-boggling'. Farley has not been charged. The case was cited by Mr Justice Chamberlain on Wednesday as a reason to allow Palestine Action to fight the proscription. He said it was evidence of the 'chilling effect' the proscription was having 'on those wishing to express legitimate political views'. In total, more than 200 people have been detained since the ban. Not a single person in England or Wales has been charged. The large majority are over 60, according to Tim Crosland, a former government lawyer who now campaigns for Defend Our Juries, an organisation that is supporting many of the detainees. He says some of the protesters are 'well into their eighties'. The police are aware of these optics. Mansfield claims that her male counterterrorism interrogator even asked her at one stage: 'Was this a conspiracy to make the police look bad?' The reality, she says, is simpler: the seriousness of terrorism charges is a significant disincentive to younger protesters at the start of their careers; for pensioners determined to take a stance, it is the perfect opportunity to step up. Robert Lee, 61, another protester arrested on 5 July but not charged, who later went to support demonstrators in Bristol, says he remembers one 83-year-old woman gleefully telling him that police were afraid to arrest her 'because they are terrified I might die in custody'. But the crowds of pensioner protesters are nonetheless peppered with younger demonstrators, a reality they say nods to the broad spectrum of opposition to the proscription of Palestine Action. For Zara Ali, 18, who is among the youngest to have been arrested, her involvement felt especially high-stakes. She was already on bail for conspiracy to cause public nuisance after blocking a road in March. She has not been charged. 'I was told to prepare myself for prison,' she says, admitting that she was very 'anxious' when she arrived in Parliament Square for the protest on 19 July. 'But at the end of the day, I had it in my mind that this is not about me but about Palestine, and about every single political prisoner who is being held.' The Independent spoke to half a dozen protesters for this piece, all of whom said that their 'disgust' at Israel's war on Gaza was the primary motivation for their involvement. Claims that the proscription pointed to a 'dystopian' future in Britain were also commonly cited as a key motivation. The Home Office declined to comment.
