Head of controversial Gaza aid group calls UN data on deaths 'disinformation'
The chief of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has called figures by the United Nations on people killed at aid hubs "disinformation".
The UN said at least 410 Palestinians have been killed seeking food since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on 19 May, while the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 549 people have been killed.
Johnnie Moore, executive director of GHF, said there is a "disinformation campaign" that is "meant to shut down our efforts" in the Gaza Strip, fuelled by "some figures" coming out every day.
"This is an active conflict. I think people may not understand as clearly what it means to operate a humanitarian operation on this scale, in an environment this complex, in a piece of land as small as the Gaza Strip, and may not appreciate that almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something," he told Sky News.
Mr Moore, an evangelical preacher who served as a White House adviser in the first Trump administration, said his aid group has delivered more than 44 million meals to Gazans since it began operations in May.
The controversial group, backed by Israel and the United States, has been rejected by the UN and other aid groups, which have refused to cooperate with the GHF.
The aid agencies claim Israel is weaponising food, and the new distribution system using the GHF will be ineffective and lead to further displacement of Palestinians.
They also argue the GHF will fail to meet local needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance.
The GHF is distributing food packages, which they say can feed 5.5 people for 3.5 days.
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Glasgow Times
14 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Talks on nuclear programme complicated by US strikes, Iran says
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state television that the attacks had caused 'serious damage'. The US was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. The deal unravelled after President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally during his first term. Mr Trump has suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week. Mr Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear programme, but suggested it would not be any time soon. 'No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,' he said. 'No time has been set, no promise has been made and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.' The American decision to intervene militarily 'made it more complicated and more difficult' for talks, Mr Araghchi said. Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists. In 12 days of strikes, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and hit eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group. Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people. The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important sites with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a US base in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties. Mr Trump said the American attacks 'completely and fully obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme, though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not 'achieve anything significant'. There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something it told UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to do. Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, 'is very, very, very considerable'. Among other things, he said, centrifuges are 'quite precise machines' and it's 'not possible' that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused 'important physical damage'. 'These centrifuges are no longer operational,' he said. Mr Araghchi himself acknowledged that 'the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage'. He added that Iran had not yet decided upon whether to allow IAEA inspectors in to assess the damage, but that they would be kept out 'for the time being'.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Gaza must be eliminated': Israel's airwaves are filled with pro-genocide propaganda
'Strikes on Iran ease pressure on Israel to end starvation in Gaza.' That, in case you missed it, is a recent headline from the Guardian from Saturday. It's the sort of statement that might have once shocked people but is now just another news bulletin. Following Israel's 'pre-emptive strike' on Iran earlier this month, which happened just as more people started speaking up about the genocide, attention has been averted from Gaza. But Israel's assault on Gaza (and the West Bank), is continuing apace. With the pressure off, the fear is that some of the most extreme voices in Israel will get exactly what they want in Gaza. Which, as retired Maj Gen Giora Eiland wrote in an Israeli paper on 12 October 2023, is to turn into 'a place where no human being can exist'. To remind you of what some of these voices have planned for Gaza, below is a collection of some of the more outrageous statements by Israeli lawmakers or influencers since 7 October 2023. I've limited the collection to 20, but there are databases online with hundreds of statements which show a blurring of Hamas and the population of Gaza (including children) and a desire to inflict collective punishment. The end goal of all this is not the removal of Hamas from Gaza, but the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. 'All of Gaza's infrastructures must be destroyed to its foundation and their electricity cut off immediately. The war is not against Hamas but against the state of Gaza,' said May Golan, minister for social equality and the advancement of the status of women of Israel on 7 October 2023. 'Flatten everything [in Gaza] just like it is today in Auschwitz,' David Azoulay, council leader for the northern Israeli town of Metula, said in an interview with an Israeli radio station, December 2023. '[I]t's an entire nation out there that is responsible. it's not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved, it's absolutely not true …' Isaac Herzog, Israel's president, said at a press conference on 13 October (in English). 'Now we all have one common goal – erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth' Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, wrote on X 7 October 2023. Vaturi also wrote: 'The war will never end if we don't expel everyone.' (2 November 2023) and 'To wipe out Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us … Don't leave a single child there, expel all the remaining ones in the end, so they have no chance of recovery.' (9 October 2023) 'The children and women must be separated and the adults in Gaza must be eliminated. We are being too considerate,' Vaturi said during an interview with Kol BaRama radio in February 2025, when he also called Palestinians 'subhumans' and said the West Bank would be turned into Gaza next. 'The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death,' Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir's far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said in a radio interview. This did not get much international coverage but was cited in the letter sent to the attorney general at the end of 2023 accusing the country's judicial authorities of ignoring incitement to genocide. 'Gaza won't return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything,' Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, said October 2023. (Gallant was in this position at the time of the statement but is no longer in government) 'I'm not sure you're speaking for us when you say we want to treat every child and every woman. I hope you don't stand behind that statement either. When fighting a group like this, the distinctions that exist in a normal world don't exist,' said Likud parliament member Amit Halevi in the Knessest, in response to a statement from an Israeli doctor saying suffering children should get painkillers, May 2025. 'The children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves,' said Meirav Ben-Ari from Yair Lapid's opposition party Yesh Atid in response to a Palestinian lawmaker bemoaning the loss of civilian life on 16 October 2023. 'There should be 2 goals for this victory: 1. There is no more Muslim land in the Land of Israel ... After we make it the land of IL, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom …' said Likud member of the Knesset Amit Halevi on 16 October 2023. 'They [the children] are our enemies,' said Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the National Religious party, part of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. Rothman was responding to a question from a Channel 4 (UK) interviewer asking 'the children are your enemies?' The following statements were all made on Channel 14: a far-right TV station that used to be a niche outlet but has morphed into one of the most watched news sources in Israel. Three civil rights organization have asked for an investigation into Channel 14 for its normalization of genocidal statements. 'This is clearly not a matter of a few isolated voices saying outrageous things in the heat of the moment,' Ran Cohen, the director of the Israeli Democratic bloc said in a statement to the Guardian. 'The pattern of incitement emerging from Channel 14 is systematic, sustained, and orchestrated – not incidental. We have documented hundreds of statements, many delivered by regular hosts and guests, broadcast daily into Israeli homes and directly watched by soldiers. The line between media and war propaganda has been erased.' 'If the goal of this operation is not destruction, occupation, expulsion, and settlement, then we have accomplished nothing,' said former member of the Israeli Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, on 12 October 2023. 'Erase Gaza completely, don't leave a single person there' said singer Eyal Golan, on 15 October 2023. Since making a number of statements like this, Golan has gone on to perform concerts in Europe. 'We are coming. We are coming. We are coming to Gaza. We are coming to Lebanon. We will come to Iran. We will come to every place [...] We will annihilate the enemy. We will return the Middle East to a situation where Arabs are terrified of Jews [...] we will come to annihilate you [emphasizes]. To a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a- t-e. Annihilate. Pass this on, share this video so all your friends can see what we are about to do to you,' said the anchor of Channel 14's morning show, Shai Golden, 17 October 2023. 'The enemy is not Hamas, but Gaza. The enemy is not Fatah, but the Arabs of the West Bank. And they are not willing to accept this because the approach to dealing with this enemy, called 'Gaza,' needs to be completely different [...] Similar to Chechnya, where the Russians flattened it to the extent that the Chechens realized: it's not worth thinking with them [...] There are no innocents. When you say 'population', there is no population. There are two and a half million terrorists [...] When there are no innocents in Gaza, there's no point in 'roof knocking'. Because everyone is a terrorist,' said Eliahu Yusian, who presents himself as an expert and commentator on Arab affairs. He is a frequent guest on Channel 14, was a guest on the show The Patriots and said all the above without interruption on 29 October 2023. 'I keep looking beyond the military objectives, which is nice, but in the end, there's something beyond the military objectives, and that's the strategy. It's about breaking the spirit of the Gazan public, and things are happening there,' Shimon Riklin said on 21 February 2024. '… every day we're killing 100 terrorists? There are two and a half million terrorists there!' panelist Eliahu Yusian said on 24 February 2024. 'Regarding what Boaz mentioned, in the first day or two, we should have killed 100,000 Gazans [...] Only a few are possibly human there. Only a few are possibly human there. Over 90% are terrorists and are involved! Not uninvolved, there's no such thing as uninvolved,' political commentator Danny Neuman said on journalist Boaz Golan's show on 6 May 2024. 'The destruction in Gaza gives me a good feeling. Gaza is in a state of annihilation. Many buildings no longer exist in the landscape. The destruction machine must keep working so it's clear they have nowhere to return to. Despair as a work plan,' Yinon Magal said on the show The Patriots reading a tweet by a reservist soldier named Dvir Luger on 3 August 2024. 'Gaza deserves death. The 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza deserve death! … Men, women, and children – in every way possible, we must simply carry out a Holocaust on them – yes, read that again – H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T! For me, gas chambers. Train cars. And other cruel forms of death for these Nazis. Without fear, without hesitation – simply crush, eradicate, slaughter, flatten, dismantle, smash, shatter …. Gaza deserves death. Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza,' said Elad Barashi, a TV producer affiliated with Channel 14, on 27 February 2025. in a post on X which was later deleted. It's clear now that nothing will shame the West into stopping Israel from carrying out its 'total victory' in Gaza. But I've written this to serve as yet another reminder that we all knew what was coming. Nobody can feign ignorance. Nobody can pretend they didn't know. Arwa Mahdwai is a Guardian US columnist
The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
UK launched huge operation to find suspected Russian double agent in MI6
Britain's spy chiefs were forced to launch one of the most sensitive and risky investigations since the cold war over fears a senior officer at the foreign intelligence service MI6 was a double agent for Russia. The extensive hunt for the alleged mole, called Operation Wedlock, was run by MI6's sister agency, MI5, which deployed a team of up to 35 surveillance, planning and desk officers, who travelled across the world. One trip took an entire surveillance team to the Middle East for more than a week, the Guardian has been told, where the officers were put up in a CIA safe house. This trip was particularly hazardous, it's understood, because the officers travelled to the country without the knowledge of its government, and would have been illegal under international law. The investigation is believed to have lasted in one form or another for up to 20 years, but MI5 could not establish whether British intelligence had a mole – raising the possibility that an agent may have got away with spying for Russia. 'We thought we had another Philby on our hands,' said a source, referring to Kim Philby, the infamous MI6 double agent who was part of a group of Britons recruited by the Soviet Union, known as the Cambridge spy ring. MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, is the UK spy agency responsible for overseas intelligence collection and agent handling; MI5, the Security Service, is the domestic intelligence agency that assesses threats to Britain's national security. The MI5 investigation began in the 1990s and is understood to have continued until at least 2015. By then, the officer being targeted by the Wedlock team had left MI6, which employed a staff of 2,500 at the time. The tipoff about the alleged spy came from the CIA in the US, which was convinced a British intelligence official who was working in London had been relaying secrets to Russia. During part of the investigation, Russia's secret intelligence service, the FSB, was being run by Vladimir Putin. A source with close knowledge of the operation said: '[We were told] the target was a Russian spy … The US believed he was leaking information to the Russians. He was suspect 1A. The job was taken more seriously than any other [MI5] was involved in. Wedlock eclipsed them all.' The operation began in the mid-to-late 1990s after the CIA told its counterparts in British intelligence about its concerns. A recently published book, The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB, by the former BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera, references the episode. The book says the CIA was concerned that an MI6 officer had been 'turned by Moscow', but that it was unclear who it was. The Guardian has discovered that the UK identified the alleged spy and a team of MI5 specialists was tasked with following him. The team did not operate from MI5 headquarters at Thames House in Westminster. Such was the sensitivity, the officer who led the surveillance was briefed about the operation in a church, according to a source. Some of those selected to be involved in the operation were initially told they were going on a training exercise, and were only given the terms of reference when they were outside Thames House. The Wedlock surveillance team was based in a building in Wandsworth, south London – close to MI6's riverside building in Vauxhall. The officers operated there under the name of a fake security business. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion At the time, the team was told the target had a senior role at MI6 with access to a wide range of highly sensitive material. MI5's technical operations team, known then as A1, covertly broke into the MI6 officer's home and planted listening and video devices. A live feed beamed images back to an operations room. An MI5 car outside his house was fitted with a camera inside a tissue box on the ledge behind the back seats, a source said. The extensive surveillance highlighted some conduct that raised cause for concern, but this was unrelated to spying, the Guardian has been told. During the course of the operation, surveillance teams tracked his movements abroad, following him to cities across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, a very high-risk move as the team was operating outside MI5's jurisdiction. The Guardian has been told the team was sent into a country with real passports under false names, with the agents warned that if they were detained for any reason, they were 'on their own … we can't help you'. Such was the concern about the alleged mole, intelligence chiefs considered they had no choice. The man being surveilled was not thought to be working alone, a source said. Two other people, also based in London, were thought to be helping him. The source said Wedlock was a 'highly unusual operation … the longest in recent memory and probably the most expensive'. To have one UK intelligence agency in effect spying on another was extraordinary, the source said. 'MI5 never got the conclusive proof it was looking for,' they added. They said that if it was not him, then potentially MI6 'still has a mole to find'. One concern among those who worked on the operation was that the target, a specialist himself, became aware he was being watched. A Whitehall source declined to comment.
