
Dozens of Palestinians killed while seeking aid in Gaza as US envoy heads to Israel for talks
At least 48 Palestinians were killed and dozens more were wounded while waiting for food at a crossing near Gaza City's Zikim district, on July 30, 2025. The latest violence related to aid distribution came as Washington's Middle East envoy headed to Israel for talks. Israel's continuing military offensive and blockade have led to the 'worst-case scenario of famine' in the coastal territory where some 2 million Palestinians live, according to the leading international authority on hunger crises. US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will arrive in Israel on July 31 for talks on the situation in Gaza.

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RTHK
3 hours ago
- RTHK
US envoy meets Israeli hostage families
US envoy meets Israeli hostage families Steve Witkoff (centre) is in Tel Aviv to meet the families of the hostages and inspect aid delivery efforts in Gaza. Photo: Reuters US envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday met the anguished families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, as fears for the captives' survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack. Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum confirmed the meeting was underway and videos shared online showed Witkoff arriving as families chanted "Bring them home!" and "We need your help." The visit came one day after Witkoff visited a US-backed aid station in Gaza, to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory. After the meeting, the Forum released a statement saying that Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and US President Donald Trump would work to return the remaining hostages. The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, had been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel that would allow the hostages to be released and humanitarian aid to flow more freely. But talks broke down last month and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under increasing domestic pressure to come up with another way to secure the missing hostages, alive or dead. Netanyahu is also facing international calls to open Gaza's borders to more food aid, after UN and humanitarian agencies warned that more than two million Palestinian civilians are facing starvation. Witkoff visited a food distribution point in Gaza run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Friday, promising that Trump would come up with a plan to better feed civilians. (AFP)


South China Morning Post
8 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Syria's make-or-break moment looms with first post-Assad election
As Syria approaches a watershed moment in its post-war transition, the country's fragile peace is being tested by renewed diplomatic manoeuvres, sectarian violence and a deepening humanitarian crisis. The latest round of Western and Arab mediation comes a full 14 years since the outbreak of civil war and follows sectarian clashes in mid-July that left 1,400 dead in the southwestern Sweida region, highlighting the urgent need to preserve Syria's territorial integrity from the designs of avaricious neighbouring states Formed in March mere months after the ousting of long-ruling dictator Bashar al-Assad, Syria's fledgling government now finds itself increasingly at odds with large minority groups – Druze in the southwest, Kurds in the northeast and Alawites along the coastal northwest – contesting its insistence on retaining a centralised constitutional structure. Against this backdrop, indirect parliamentary elections, slated for September 15–20 and announced on Monday, were 'a small but important step' towards expanding Syria's political process to include all its ethnic minorities, said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank's Middle East programme. 03:53 Syria vows accountability after reports of mass killings spark global condemnation Syria vows accountability after reports of mass killings spark global condemnation Yacoubian stressed that it would be 'critical that this vote makes some progress towards genuine inclusion and buy-in from Syria's many minorities', following the deadly confrontations between government forces and Druze militias in Sweida from July 13-19, as well as a similar outbreak of violence with Alawite communities in March that claimed some 1,100 lives.


South China Morning Post
12 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Is Thailand's conflict-hit economy running out of luck?
For days, the piercing whistle of Cambodian rockets sent 69-year-old Kantapong Prakaew scrambling for cover in his makeshift bunker – a frail fortification against the conflict in Thailand 's Surin province. He is one of the few elderly residents who refused to flee, holding out as artillery fire ravaged the fields and wrecked the livelihoods of a long underdeveloped region. Across the borderlands, the recent flare-up of violence between Thailand and Cambodia has claimed dozens of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. While a tentative truce appears to be holding, the scars of conflict are everywhere to see – from the torn-up fields where Kantapong once tended eucalyptus and rubber trees, to the anxious calculations of villagers forced to count the cost of a dispute they did not choose. Bunkers to protect residents against shelling are seen in in Thailand's Surin province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP 'It's been very hard for all of us. We all have debts to pay,' said Kantapong, whose wife fled their village Surin's Phanom Dong Rak district for an evacuation centre while he stayed behind. 'We've wasted time and opportunities. Who will be responsible for our losses?'