UK ‘taking forward' Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer's office
'The prime minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance,' a statement said.
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Israel's daily pauses fall short of easing Gaza suffering: UK
LONDON, GAZA: Israel's decision on Sunday to pause military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza and allow new aid corridors falls short of what is needed to alleviate suffering in the enclave, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy said. Lammy said in a statement that Israel's announcement was 'essential but long overdue,' and that access to aid must now be urgently accelerated over the coming hours and days. 'This announcement alone cannot alleviate the needs of those desperately suffering in Gaza,' Lammy said. 'We need a ceasefire that can end the war, for hostages to be released and aid to enter Gaza by land unhindered.' Lammy said that access to aid must now be urgently accelerated over the coming hours and days. The Israeli military said the 'tactical pause' in Gaza City, Deir Al-Balah and Muwasi, three areas with large populations, would increase humanitarian aid entering the territory. The pause runs from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily until further notice. Jordan said it carried out three airdrops over Gaza, including one in cooperation with the UAE, dropping 25 tonnes of food and supplies on several locations. 'Whichever path we choose, we will have to continue to allow the entry of minimal humanitarian supplies,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Despite the annouoncement of temporary pauses, Israeli strikes killed at least 38 Palestinians from late Saturday into Sunday, including 23 seeking aid. An airstrike on a Gaza City apartment killed a woman and her four children. Another strike killed four people, including a boy, his mother and grandfather, in the eastern Zaytoun neighborhood. US President Donald Trump said Israel would have to make a decision on next steps in Gaza, adding that he did not know what would happen after moves by Israel to pull out of ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with the Hamas militant group. Trump underscored the importance of securing the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, saying they had suddenly 'hardened' up on the issue. 'They don't want to give them back, and so Israel is going to have to make a decision,' Trump told reporters at the start of a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his golf property in Turnberry, Scotland. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in southern Gaza on Sunday, the military said, a day after confirming another soldier had died of wounds sustained last week. The two soldiers, aged 20 and 22, served in the Golani Infantry Brigade's 51st Battalion. Israeli military sources said they were killed when their armored vehicle exploded in the city of Khan Yunis.
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For the sake of peace, America should recognize Palestine
After an unexpected delay due to Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran last month, the UN will finally convene a crucial high-level meeting in New York this week. Scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at the foreign minister level, the meeting aims to discuss the long-promised but still unrealized political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the two-state solution. The idea is not new. It envisions two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace. While Israel has been recognized by the global community, including Arab nations and the Palestinians themselves, the state of Palestine still lacks full recognition by the UN Security Council. That recognition is a necessary step before Palestine can be admitted as a full UN member. Three permanent members of the UNSC — France, the UK and the US — have so far blocked that recognition. But change is coming. President Emmanuel Macron, whose government is co-chairing the UN conference with Saudi Arabia, has announced that France will recognize Palestine when the UN General Assembly meets this fall. The UK has expressed similar intentions, conditioned on there being a 'wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution.' Without a political horizon for Palestinians and a realistic long-term solution, we will only be kicking the can down the road. Both France and the UK understand the urgent need for an end to the Israeli revenge war on Gaza, accomplishing the release of detainees on both sides, followed immediately by an urgent effort to carry out the more important challenge of finding a political solution. Before the end of September, it is expected that 150 of the UN's 193 member states will have recognized the state of Palestine on the June 4, 1967, borders. This leaves the US as the lone major holdout. Leaders from both major American political parties, including President Donald Trump, have supported the idea of a two-state solution. Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, despite his staunch support for Israel, even visited Ramallah last year and met with senior Palestinian leader Hussein Al-Sheikh. Yet, paradoxically, the US has announced that it does not plan to attend the UN meeting on the two-state solution. The reasons remain unclear. One possibility is that Washington is reacting to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fiery rhetoric. After Macron's announcement, Netanyahu claimed that recognizing Palestine would endanger Israeli security. 'A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel,' he said. 'Let's be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel.' Nothing could be further from the truth. If any side is attempting to negate the other, it is Israel seeking to erase Palestine, not the other way round. The current Palestinian leadership, based in Ramallah and led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has consistently opposed the Oct. 7 attacks and Hamas' militaristic approach. This leadership favors diplomacy and has long supported the two-state vision, as outlined in the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence. That declaration explicitly envisioned a Palestinian state next to Israel. If any side is attempting to negate the other, it is Israel seeking to erase Palestine, not the other way round. Daoud Kuttab It is important to recall that Netanyahu himself has historically enabled Hamas, seeing it as a tool to divide and weaken the secular Palestinian national movement. The world now recognizes this cynical strategy for what it is. But Western leaders too often ignore this reality. Recognition of Palestine at the UN is not a 'reward for terror.' It is a recognition of an inalienable right: the right of self-determination. That principle is foundational to the very idea of the UN and the international order it represents. If Washington continues to pay lip service to a two-state solution while boycotting discussions intended to realize it, the implications will be stark. The current position suggests that American leaders — whether consciously or not — are aligning themselves with a vision of Jewish supremacy in the Middle East. That is a dangerous path. It will only prolong the conflict and isolate the US from the global consensus, which is increasingly united against apartheid, occupation and permanent discrimination. Palestinians and Israelis have two — and only two — realistic options: two states for two peoples or one democratic state with equal rights for all. All other ideas mean that America (and any other holdouts on Palestinian recognition) support apartheid by not opposing the current situation. As leading Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem stated in a report back in 2011, Israel has been conducting 'a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.' In 1948, Israel expelled 750,000 Palestinians and has refused to allow them to return ever since. Many of those refugees ended up in Gaza and we have seen what the absence of justice for Palestinians has produced. Continuing on this path of ignoring the Palestinian reality and denying the political rights of Palestinians under whatever religious or domestic political consideration will never work. Neither will the fantasy of permanently expelling or suppressing the 7 million Palestinians living between the river and the sea ever succeed. On May 15, 1948, within minutes of its declaration as a state, the US recognized Israel. It is high time that America recognized the other half of the two-state solution. The sooner Washington genuinely embraces the two-state solution and joins the world in recognizing the state of Palestine — including the principle of it being an independent, democratic nation living peacefully alongside Israel — the sooner peace in the Middle East can become a reality.
