Just 36 aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday, Palestinian officials claim - short of 600 needed
According to the Gazan government's media office, most of the humanitarian supplies were looted and stolen - "as a result of the state of security chaos that the Israeli occupation systematically and deliberately perpetuates".
Officials say at least 600 truckloads of aid are required on a daily basis, adding: "The needs of the population are worsening."
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A statement released late last night called for "the immediate opening of crossings, and the entry of aid and infant formula in sufficient quantities" - and "condemned in the strongest terms the continuation of the crime of starvation".
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuted this - and accused Hamas of "stirring up a slanderous propaganda campaign against Israel".
He said: "The cruelty of Hamas has no boundaries. While the State of Israel is allowing the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, the terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving our hostages and document them in a cynical and evil manner.
"The terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving the residents of the Strip as well, preventing them from receiving the aid."
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It comes as the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza said its headquarters in Khan Younis were hit by an Israeli strike, killing one staff member and injuring three others.
Footage posted on social media shows a fire broke out in the building.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel for a 60-day ceasefire, and a deal for the release of half the hostages still held in Gaza, ended in deadlock last week.
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy told the families of the hostages yesterday that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would end the war.
Steve Witkoff claimed that Hamas was willing to disarm to stop the conflict, despite the group's repeated statements that it would not do so.
In response, Hamas said it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.
After Mr Witkoff's meeting with the families of the hostages, Hamas released two videos of an emaciated Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023 and has been held in captivity in Gaza since.
The 24-year-old looked skeletal, with his shoulder blades protruding from his back. He was heard saying that he had not eaten for three days. The distressing videos show him digging his own grave, he said in the footage.
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The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
I saw many atrocities as a senior aid official in Gaza. Now Israeli authorities are trying to silence us
Gaza has been held under water for 22 months, allowed to gasp for air only when Israeli authorities have succumbed to political pressure from those with more leverage than international law itself. After months of relentless bombardment, forced displacement and deprivation, the impact of Israel's collective punishment of Gaza's people has never been more devastating. I have been part of coordinating humanitarian efforts in Gaza since October 2023. Whatever lifesaving aid has entered since then has been the exception, not the rule. More than a year after the international court of justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to 'take all measures within its power' to prevent acts of genocide – and despite all our warnings – we are still witnessing starvation, insufficient access to water, a sanitation crisis and a crumbling health system against a backdrop of ongoing violence that is resulting in scores of Palestinians being killed daily, including children. Powerless to change this, we humanitarians have resorted to using our voices – alongside those of Palestinian journalists who risk everything – to describe the appalling, inhuman conditions in Gaza. Speaking out, as I'm doing now, in the face of deliberate, preventable suffering is part of our role to promote respect for international law. But doing so comes at a price. After I held a press briefing in Gaza on 22 June in which I described how starving civilians were being shot while trying to reach food – what I called 'conditions created to kill' – the Israeli minister of foreign affairs announced in a post on X that my visa would not been renewed. The Israeli permanent representative to the UN followed up at the security council announcing that I would be expected to leave by 29 July. This silencing is part of a broader pattern. International NGOs face increasingly restrictive registration requirements, including clauses that prohibit certain criticism of Israel. Palestinian NGOs that, against the odds, continue to save lives daily are cut off from the resources they need to operate. UN agencies are increasingly being issued only six, three or one-month visas based on whether they are considered 'good, bad or ugly'. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unwra) has been targeted through legislation, its international staff barred from entry and its operations slowly suffocated. These reprisals cannot erase the reality we've witnessed – day in, day out – not just in Gaza but in the West Bank too. What I have observed there looks different from what is unfolding in Gaza, but there is a unified purpose: severing territorial continuity and forcing Palestinians into ever-shrinking enclaves. Palestinians in the West Bank are daily being coerced and contained: coerced by settler violence and demolitions out of areas where settlements are expanding and contained by a network of movement restrictions into disconnected built-up areas where there are increasing military operations. Gaza is also being fragmented. Its 2.1 million people are now being crammed into just 12% of the land area of the Strip. I remember receiving the chilling call on 13 October 2023 announcing the forced displacement of the entirety of northern Gaza. Since that brutal opening act, almost all of Gaza has been forcibly displaced – not once but repeatedly – without sufficient shelter, food or safety. I have seen first-hand what appears to be the systematic dismantling of the means to sustain Palestinian life. As part of our role to coordinate humanitarian operations, my colleagues and I have helped carry patients out of dark, cat-infested ICU wards in destroyed hospitals overtaken by Israeli forces where the dead were being buried in the courtyard by the last remaining sleep-deprived staff who had witnessed their colleagues being marched away. We helped uncover mass graves in other hospital courtyards where families searched through scattered clothes trying to identify loved ones who had been stripped before being killed or disappeared. We have argued with soldiers who were trying to forcibly remove a screaming spinal cord injury patient from an ambulance while being evacuated from a hospital. We have repatriated the bodies of humanitarian workers killed by drone strikes and tank fire while trying to deliver aid, and collected the bodies of family members of NGO workers who were killed in sites acknowledged by Israeli forces as 'humanitarian' locations. We have seen medics in their uniforms killed and buried under ambulances crushed by Israeli forces. Overcrowded shelters for displaced people bombed, with parents clutching their injured or dead children. Countless bodies in the streets being eaten by dogs. People calling from beneath rubble, with help from first responders denied until no one was left breathing. Children wasting away from malnutrition while aid navigates an insurmountable obstacle course of obstructionism. Israeli authorities accuse us of being the problem. They say we are failing to collect goods from the crossings. We aren't failing, we are being obstructed. Just last week I was on a convoy headed to Kerem Shalom crossing from inside Gaza. We escorted empty trucks through a densely crowded area, an unnecessarily complicated route provided by Israeli forces. When the trucks were lined up at a holding point and the green light to move to the crossing finally came from Israeli forces, thousands of desperate people moved with us, hoping the trucks would return with food. As we crawled forward, people clung to the vehicles until we saw the first dead body on the side of the road, shot in the back from the direction of Israeli forces. At the crossing, the gate was shut. We waited around two hours for a soldier to open it. That convoy took 15 hours to complete. With other convoys, Israeli forces have delayed returning trucks while crowds gather and killed desperate people who were waiting for the trucks to arrive. Some of our goods have been looted by armed gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces. During the ceasefire, we ran multiple convoys a day. Now chaos, killing and obstruction are again the norm. Aid is vital, but it will never be a cure for engineered scarcity. The ICJ has been clear. In its binding provisional measures, it not only ordered Israel to prevent acts prohibited under the genocide convention, it also ordered Israel to enable urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including by increasing aid crossings. In a separate advisory opinion, the ICJ left no room for doubt: Israel's ongoing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful under international law. Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are different parts of the same picture. What is unfolding is not complicated. It is not inevitable. It is the result of deliberate political choices by those who create these conditions and those who enable them. The end of the occupation is long overdue. The credibility of the multilateral system is being weakened by double standards and impunity. International law cannot be a tool of convenience for some if it is to be a viable tool of protection for all. Gaza is already drowning beneath bombs, starvation and the relentless grip of the blockade on essentials for survival. Every delay in enforcing the most basic rules meant to protect human life is another hand pressing Gaza down as it struggles for breath. 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.
Daily Mail
40 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'The fruits of October 7': The sickening phrase used by Hamas to describe Labour's plan to recognise a Palestinian state, 22 months on from massacre
Keir Starmer 's plan for Palestinian state recognition is 'one of the fruits of October 7,' a top Hamas official has boasted. The statement came as furore around the Prime Minister's proposal showed no sign of dying down at the weekend. Senior Hamas politician Ghazi Hamad enflamed the situation as he told news network Al Jazeera: 'The initiative by several countries to recognise the Palestinian State is one of the fruits of October 7. 'Why do all countries recognise Palestine today? Before October 7, was there a single country that dared to recognise the State of Palestine? Just give me one example. 'Now, the achievement we accomplished on October 7 is what brought the Palestinian issue to the world's attention and prompted powerful action in support of it,' Hamad said. Sir Keir and the leaders of France and Canada have faced accusations that plans to recognise a Palestinian state would be rewarding the group responsible for the biggest slaughter of Jewish people since the Holocaust and for emboldening the terror group with no clear incentive for a ceasefire. Adam Rose, a lawyer acting for the British hostage families, said: 'It comes as absolutely no surprise to us that Hamas would welcome the UK's decision to recognise the state of Palestine without first requiring Hamas to release the 50 hostages it still holds, 667 days on from 7 October, 2023. 'Indeed, and as we predicted, in the past few days since the UK's announcement, we have seen an emboldened Hamas, which released videos of emaciated hostages Rom Braslavski, 22, and 24-year-old Evyatar David, the latter being shown digging his own grave in the dungeon in which he is being held, starved and tortured.' Last week British-Israeli Emily Damari led condemnations from hostage families saying the PM was 'not standing on the right side of history' with his pledge to recognise a Palestinian state if Israel did not agree to a ceasefire before September's UN meeting. In contrast, no conditions were placed on Hamas to release the remaining hostages, giving the terror group no reason to stop the fighting. Foreign Secretary David Lammy last night posted on X: 'The images of hostages being paraded for propaganda are sickening. Every hostage must be released unconditionally. Hamas must disarm and have no control over Gaza. 'We are working with partners on a long-term solution and plan for peace. This must begin with an immediate ceasefire that frees the hostages, as well as removing inhumane aid restrictions.' Noam Sagi, whose elderly mother Ada was kidnapped into Gaza, told the Daily Mail: 'Britain should lead with moral courage, not appease evil'. Last night, Hamas said it is conditionally ready to deliver Red Cross aid to the hostages it is holding in Gaza. The terror group said that if Israel opens humanitarian corridors permanently and halts 'all forms of air traffic' during the delivery of packages to the hostages, it would allow aid to reach them.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Palestine Action supporters planning to ‘flood' streets
Pro-Palestine protesters have made plans to deliberately flout the new proscription of Palestine Action by overwhelming the criminal justice system through a massive pressure campaign. The plot would call on thousands of demonstrators to flood towns and cities across the UK and go against the ban on Palestine Action by declaring their support for the organisation. Plans revealed by The Telegraph showed a co-ordinated effort coming from groups including Cage International and Defend Our Juries. At a meeting hosted by Cage International last week, activists called for people to join in an act of mass public disobedience. Speaking at the meeting was Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who received an out-of-court settlement from the British government after a lawsuit alleging the government's complicity in alleged abuse and torture while in US custody. He said: 'I would urge everybody to join the action of the 9th of August. That is the first step to take for the resistance. Those from the Muslim community, we have a massive presence in this city, and we must engage our leaders, our imams, our habibs, those in positions of power, to join, there is strength in numbers, stop being a coward, cowards never win battles.' The event has been described by Shezana Hafiz, a representative of Cage International, as an opportunity to 'discuss crucial matters that pertain to our movement — a movement to liberate Palestine, to crush Zionism and see an end to the genocide in Gaza.' Angie Zelter, from Defend Our Juries, also urged people to join. 'Together we can and must face down the rising tide of fascism in Britain'. • Pro-Palestinian groups announce 'siege' on Labour MPs A document written by Defend Our Juries, which was seen by The Telegraph, read: 'It would be practically and politically difficult for the state to respond to an action on this scale … an action on this scale could be enough for the ban to be lifted.' Activists were told to bring their own placard to write: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' Graham Wettone, a retired Metropolitan Police officer, warned it would create problems for forces across the country. He said: 'There are a limited number of custody cell spaces available in London … Simply put, they will not be able to arrest and process everyone.'
