UK government looking at harsher punishments for people smugglers
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RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Israeli cabinet may order complete Gaza takeover
By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters A cloud of smoke erupts following Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip on 5 August, 2025. Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFP Israel's cabinet could authorise a complete military takeover of Gaza for the first time in two decades, media reported, despite international pressure for a ceasefire to ease appalling conditions in the besieged Palestinian territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leaning towards an expanded offensive and taking control of the entire enclave after 22 months of war against militant group Hamas, Israeli Channel 12 reported. A senior Israeli source told Reuters on Monday (local time) that more force was an option following the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas . Seizing the entire territory would reverse a 2005 decision by Israel to pull settlers and military out of Gaza while retaining control over its borders - a move right-wing parties blame for Hamas gaining power there. It was unclear, however, whether a potential full takeover of Gaza would entail a prolonged occupation or a short-term operation aimed at dismantling Hamas and freeing hostages. Israel's coalition government is regarded as one of the most right-wing in its history, with the cabinet including parties that seek to annex both Gaza and the West Bank and encourage Palestinians to leave their homeland. The country's military has throughout the war pushed back against the idea of Israel trying to fully occupy Gaza and establish military rule there, which would require it to take over long-term governance. The military has also struggled with manpower issues as the war has dragged on, with reservists being repeatedly called up and putting a strain on capabilities. The conflict was triggered by a Hamas attack on 7 October, 2023, when gunmen stormed the border from Gaza, killing more than 1200 people and seizing around 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military campaign has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, killing more than 60,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities. It has forced nearly all of Gaza's over 2 million people from their homes and caused what a global hunger monitor called last week an unfolding famine . That has caused widespread international anger and prompted several European countries to say they would recognise a Palestinian state next month if there was no ceasefire. Inside Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians, local health authorities said, including five people in a tent in Khan Younis and three aid seekers near Rafah in the south. Israeli tanks pushed into central Gaza earlier on Tuesday but it was not clear if the move was part of a larger ground offensive. Palestinians living in the last fifth of the territory where Israel has not yet taken military control via ground incursions or orders for civilians to leave said any new move to occupy the area would be catastrophic. "If the tanks pushed through, where would we go, into the sea? This will be like a death sentence to the entire population," said Abu Jehad, a Gaza wood merchant, who asked not to be named in full. A Palestinian official close to the talks and mediation said Israeli threats could be a way to pressure Hamas to make concessions at the negotiation table. "It will only complicate the negotiation further, at the end, the resistance factions will not accept less than an end to the war, and a full withdrawal from Gaza," he told Reuters, asking not to be named. Israel said it would allow merchants to import goods. A source in Gaza told Reuters some trucks had already entered carrying chocolates and biscuits for a merchant. It is hoped that essential items such as children's milk, fresh meat and fruits, sugar, and rice could be allowed in, which would alleviate scarcity and drive down prices of what is available in the markets. US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said last week he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza. But Israeli officials have also floated ideas including expanding the offensive and annexing parts of Gaza. The failed ceasefire talks in Doha had aimed to clinch agreements on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce, during which aid would be flown into Gaza and half of the hostages Hamas is holding would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. The Israeli military was expected on Tuesday to present alternatives that include extending into areas of Gaza where it has not yet operated, according to two defence officials. - Reuters Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- RNZ News
UK to start returning some migrants to France within days under new deal
By Alistair Smout , Reuters UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: AFP / POOL / Ludovic Marin Britain said it will begin implementing a deal to return some migrants who arrive on small boats to France within days, a key part of its plans to cut illegal migration, after a treaty on the arrangement is ratified on Tuesday. Under the new deal, France has agreed to accept the return of undocumented people arriving in Britain by small boats, in exchange for Britain agreeing to accept an equal number of legitimate asylum seekers with British family connections. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the "one in, one out" pilot scheme on migrant returns last month. More than 25,000 people have come to Britain on small boats so far in 2025, and Starmer has pledged to "smash the gangs" of smugglers to try to reduce the number of arrivals. Starmer, whose popularity has fallen since winning an election landslide last year, is facing pressure to stop small boats from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which leads national opinion polls. In recent weeks in England, there have been a number of protests around hotels housing the asylum seekers who have arrived on small boats, attended by both anti-immigration and pro-immigration groups. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X that the new agreement between the countries has a "clear objective" to break up the people-smuggling networks, although British interior minister Yvette Cooper would not say how many people would be returned under the scheme. "The numbers will start lower and then build up," she told Sky News, adding that the people returned would be those who had immediately arrived on small boats, rather than people already in Britain. Government sources previously said the agreement would involve about 50 returns a week, or 2600 a year, a fraction of the more than 35,000 arrivals reported last year. Critics of the scheme have said that the scale will not be sufficient to act as a deterrent, but Cooper said that the agreement with France was just one part of the government's wider plan. The government has also targeted people smugglers with sanctions, clamped down on social media adverts and is working with delivery firms to tackle the illegal work that is often promised to migrants. A treaty on the scheme was signed last week but not previously announced ahead of Tuesday's ratification. Britain said the European Commission and European Union member states had given the green light to the plan. - Reuters
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Soaring food prices prove the Gaza famine is real – and will affect generations to come
By Ilan Noy of Palestinians crowd at a lentil soup distribution point in Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on July 27, 2025. Photo: AFP / Omar Al-Qattaa Analysis: The words and pictures documenting the famine in the Gaza strip are horrifying. The coverage has led to acrimonious and often misguided debates about whether there is famine, and who is to blame for it - most recently exemplified by the controversy surrounding a picture published by the New York Times of an emaciated child who is also suffering from a preexisting health condition. While pictures and words may mislead, numbers usually don't. The Nobel prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen observed some decades ago that famines are always political and economic events, and that the most direct way to analyse them is to look at food quantities and prices. This has led to decades of research on past famines. One observation is that dramatic increases in food prices always mean there is a famine, even though not every famine is accompanied by rising food costs. The price increases we have seen in Gaza are unprecedented. The economic historian Yannai Spitzer observed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that staple food prices during the Irish Potato Famine showed a three- to five-fold increase, while there was a ten-fold rise during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. In the North Korean famine of the 1990s, the price of rice rose by a factor of 12 . At least a million people died of hunger in each of these events. Now, the New York Times has reported the price of flour in Gaza has increased by a factor of 30 and potatoes cost 50 times more. As was the case for the UK government in Ireland in the 1840s and Bengal in the 1940s, Israel is responsible for this famine because it controls almost all the Gaza strip and its borders. But Israel has also created the conditions for the famine. Following a deliberate policy in March of stopping food from coming in, it resumed deliveries of food in May through a very limited set of "stations" it established through a new US-backed organisation (the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), in a system that seemed designed to fail. Before Israel's decision in March to stop food from coming in, the price of flour in Gaza was roughly back to its prewar levels (having previously peaked in 2024 in another round of border closures). Since March, food prices have gone up by an annualised inflation rate of more than 5,000%. The excuse the Israeli government gives for its starvation policy is that Hamas controls the population by restricting food supplies. It blames Hamas for any shortage of food . However, if you want to disarm an enemy of its ability to wield food supplies as a weapon by rationing them, the obvious way to do so is the opposite: you would increase the food supply dramatically and hence lower its price. Restricting supplies and increasing their value is primarily immoral and criminal, but it is also counterproductive for Israel's stated aims. Indeed, flooding Gaza with food would have achieved much more in weakening Hamas than the starvation policy the Israeli government has chosen. The UN's top humanitarian aid official has described Israel's decision to halt humanitarian assistance to put pressure on Hamas as "cruel collective punishment" - something forbidden under international humanitarian law. Cormac Ó Gráda, the Irish economic historian of famines, quotes a Kashmiri proverb which says "famine goes, but the stains remain". The current famine in Gaza will leave long-lasting pain for Gazans and an enduring moral stain on Israel - for many generations. Ó Gráda points out two main ways in which the consequences of famines endure. Most obvious is the persistent memory of it; second are the direct effects on the long-term wellbeing of exposed populations and their descendants. The Irish and the Indians have not forgotten the famines that affected them. They still resent the British government for its actions. The memory of these famines still influences relations between Ireland, India and the UK, just as Ukraine's famine of the early 1930s is still a background to the Ukraine-Russia war. The generational impact is also significant. Several studies in China find children conceived during China's Great Leap Forward famine of 1959-1960 (which also killed millions) are less healthy , face more mental health challenges and have lower cognitive abilities than those conceived either before or after the famine. Other researchers found similar evidence from famines in Ireland and the Netherlands , supporting what is known as the "foetal origins" hypothesis, which proposes that the period of gestation has significant impacts on health in adulthood. Even more worryingly, recent research shows these harmful effects can be transmitted to later generations through epigenetic channels . Each day without available and accessible food supplies means more serious ongoing effects for the people of Gaza and the Israeli civilian hostages still held by Hamas - as well as later generations. Failure to prevent the famine will persist in collective memory as a moral stain on the international community, but primarily on Israel. Only immediate flooding of the strip with food aid can help now. Ilan Noy is the chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. This story was originally published on The Conversation.
