Gaza live: UK halts trade talks with Israel and summons ambassador over 'cruel' Gaza blockade - as UN says no aid has reached Palestinians
We've just been hearing from the head of Health Workers 4 Palestine about the conditions in Gaza as people wait for much-needed humanitarian aid.
Amira Nimerawi tells presenter Jayne Secker that the Israeli army has recently bombed the last well that provides water to civilians in Deir al Balah, central Gaza.
"Yesterday there were five trucks. They are expecting around 100 today," she says. "Yet we see a consistent attempt to destroy any infrastructures that are there to nurture life."
Nimerawi does not believe that the UK's decision to suspend talks on a new free trade agreement will do much.
"Sadly, no," she says. "I wish that it would make a difference. And I wish that these statements were emerging at the beginning of this genocide 19 months ago."
"We would like to see other countries place an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel and the supply of weapons," she adds.
"Israel needs to be cut off to stop the bloodshed, and to end the occupation once and for all. This is the only thing. This is the only way that Israel is going to stop killing Palestinians."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Israeli minister taunts imprisoned Palestinian leader not seen in years
Israel's national security minister visited a prominent Palestinian leader in jail and told him: 'You will not win,' footage shows. Marwan Barghouti, a leading member of the Palestinian Fatah party, has spent more than 20 years behind bars after being sentenced for his role in anti-Israeli attacks in the early 2000s. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultra-nationalist minister, visited him in his cell and shared footage of the encounter on X. It is the first time Barghouti has been seen publicly in years. In the clip, the minister and two other individuals, including a prison guard, surround Barghouti in a corner of his cell. 'You will not defeat us. Whoever harms the people of Israel, whoever kills children, whoever kills women... we will erase them,' Mr Ben-Gvir says in Hebrew. Barghouti, known by his supporters as 'the Palestinian Mandela', tries to respond but is interrupted by Ben Gvir, who says: 'No, you know this. And it's been the case throughout history.' The video does not specify where Barghouti is currently being held. Sources told AFP the meeting took place 'by chance' at the Ganot prison in southern Israel during a ministerial visit. 'This morning I read that various 'senior officials' in the Palestinian Authority didn't quite like what I said to arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti – may his name be erased,' Mr Ben-Gvir said in the post accompanying the video on Friday morning. 'So I will repeat it again and again, without apology – whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will wipe them out. With God's help.' Solitary confinement Barghouti, who is now in his 60s, was arrested by Israel in 2002 and sentenced to life on murder charges in 2004. Israel considers him a terrorist and convicted him over his role in the second intifada, or uprising, from 2000-2005. He often tops opinion polls of popular Palestinian leaders. Rights groups say Barghouti has been held in solitary confinement since Oct 7 2023, the day Hamas launched its deadly attacks on Israel. Palestinian supporters have accused guards of 'brutally assaulting' him, which the Israeli prison service has denied. Arab Barghouti, his son, told AFP he was shocked by the video, both at the state of his father, whom he had not seen in three years, and at what he called the 'blatantly arrogant' minister. 'He's lost a lot of weight, and he looks old,' he said of his father. 'They will not break his image in the eyes of the Palestinian people.' In a statement released by Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, the Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry denounced the confrontation as 'an unprecedented provocation'. Responding to the video in a post on X, the Palestinian mission to the United Nations said Barghouti was 'enduring extremely harsh humanitarian conditions in his solitary confinement cell'. It added that he had 'lost more than half his weight due to deliberate medical neglect and mistreatment'. 'At the same time, extremist Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir continues to directly threaten him in an attempt to break his will and resilience,' it said. It is understood Hamas have sought to exchange Barghouti for the remaining Israeli hostages it holds, but Israel is unlikely to free him.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
UN warns 1,760 Palestinians have died while seeking aid in Gaza since May - as Israel continues its bombardment of war-torn enclave
The UN today warned that at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May - a jump of several hundred since its last published figure at the beginning of August. 'Since 27 May, and as of 13 August, we have recorded that at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid; 994 in the vicinity of GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 766 along the routes of supply convoys. 'Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,' the agency's office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement. That compares with a figure of 1,373 killed the office reported on August 1. The update came as Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 38 people were killed by Israeli fire on Friday, including 12 who were waiting for humanitarian aid. The Israeli military said its troops were working to 'dismantle Hamas military capabilities', adding its forces were taking precautions 'to mitigate civilian harm'. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing swathes of the territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and the Israeli military. On Wednesday, the chief of staff of the Israeli military said plans had been approved for a new offensive in Gaza, aimed at defeating Hamas and freeing all the remaining hostages. The military intends to take control of Gaza City and nearby refugee camps, some of the most densely populated parts of the territory, which has been devastated by more than 22 months of war. In recent days, Gaza City residents have told AFP of more frequent air strikes targeting residential areas, while earlier this week Hamas denounced 'aggressive' Israeli ground incursions in the area. On Friday, the Israeli military said its troops were conducting a range of operations on the outskirts of the city. The Israeli government's plans to expand the war have sparked an international outcry as well as domestic opposition. UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in. But Israel insists that Gaza is not facing starvation and says Hamas is responsible for the looting of aid. Just days ago, distressing new photos of two skeletal-looking Palestinian children emerged amid the continued war of words. So far, 212 people, including 98 children, have reportedly died of malnutrition according to unconfirmed figures by the Hamas-run health ministry, with 11 more deaths reported last night. The latest harrowing images to come out of the Gaza strip appear to show a severely emaciated two-year-old crying out as he is treated in hospital. Little Sham Kadih, who appears to be suffering from malnutrition, was pictured weeping as he is tended to at Nasser Hospital on August 10. It comes amid an on-going shortage of baby formula and medicine, which has reportedly left scores of children on the brink of starvation. Another image purports to show three-year-old Palestinian boy Edhem Mohammed Abu Urmana being fed just water instead of baby formula. The youngster, who appears gaunt and thin, was forced to flee his home alongside his family amid the on-going bombing campaign by Israel. Now staying inside a tent at the Nuseirat refugee camp, Edhem is reportedly suffering from malnutrition. He was pictured curled into a ball as he sipped water from a bottle. Earlier this month Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff inspected a food distribution centre in war-torn Gaza. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted on X that he and Witkoff had gone to Gaza 'to learn the truth' about the private aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by the United States. 'We received briefings from IDF (the Israeli military) and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!' Huckabee said. 'Hamas hates GHF because it gets food to people without it being looted by Hamas.' The foundation, on its own X account, posted that it had been a 'privilege and honor' to host Witkoff and Huckabee as the group delivered its 100-millionth meal in Gaza, fulfilling Trump's 'call to lead with strength, compassion and action'. Hamas's October 2023 attack which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's offensive has killed at least 61,827 Palestinians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza which the United Nations considers reliable.
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Israeli unit tasked with smearing Gaza journalists as Hamas fighters
A special unit in Israel's military was tasked with identifying reporters it could smear as undercover Hamas fighters, to target them and to blunt international outrage over the killing of media workers, the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine reports. The 'legitimisation cell' was set up after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack to gather information that could bolster Israel's image and shore up diplomatic and military support from key allies, the report said, citing three intelligence sources. According to the report, in at least one case the unit misrepresented information in order to falsely describe a journalist as a militant, a designation that in Gaza is in effect a death sentence. The label was reversed before the man was attacked, one of the sources said. Earlier this week, Israel killed the Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and three colleagues in their makeshift newsroom, after claiming Sharif was a Hamas commander. The killings focused global attention on the extreme dangers faced by Palestinian journalists in Gaza and Israel's efforts to manipulate media coverage of the war. Foreign reporters have been barred from entering Gaza apart from a few brief and tightly controlled trips with the Israeli military, who impose restrictions including a ban on speaking to Palestinians. Palestinian journalists reporting from the ground are the most at risk in the world, with more than 180 killed by Israeli attacks in less than two years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel carried out 26 targeted killings of journalists in that period, the CPJ said, describing them as murders. Israel has produced an unconvincing dossier of unverified evidence on Sharif's purported Hamas links, and failed to address how he would have juggled a military command role with regular broadcast duties in one of the most heavily surveilled places on Earth. Israel did not attempt to justify killing his three colleagues. Before the attack, press freedom groups and Sharif himself had warned that Israeli accusations of Hamas links, first made in 2024, were designed to 'manufacture consent to kill'. They had been revived and repeated with increasing frequency after his reporting on famine in Gaza went viral. Intelligence sources told +972 magazine that the 'legitimisation cell' worked to undermine the work done by Palestinian journalists as well as their protected status under international law. Officers were eager to find a media worker they could link to Hamas, because they were convinced Gaza-based journalists were 'smearing [Israel's] name in front of the world', a source was quoted saying. In at least one case, they misrepresented evidence to falsely claim a reporter was an undercover militant, two sources said, although the designation was reversed before an attack was ordered. 'They were eager to label him as a target, as a terrorist, to say it's OK to attack him,' one recalled. 'They said: during the day he's a journalist, at night he's a platoon commander. Everyone was excited. But there was a chain of errors and corner-cutting.' 'In the end, they realised he really was a journalist,' the source added, and the reporter was taken off the target list. Israel's government often gave the army orders about where the unit should focus their work, and the primary motive of the 'legitimisation cell' was public relations, not national security, the sources said. When media criticism of Israel over a particular issue intensified the cell would be tasked with finding intelligence that could be declassified and used to counter the narrative, the magazine reported. 'If the global media is talking about Israel killing innocent journalists, then immediately there's a push to find one journalist who might not be so innocent, as if that somehow makes killing the other 20 acceptable,' the article quoted an intelligence source saying. The cell also reportedly sought information on Hamas's use of schools and hospitals for military purposes, and failed attacks by Palestinian armed groups that harmed civilians there. Some in the unit were reportedly concerned about publishing classified material for public relations reasons rather than military or security objectives. Officers were told their work was crucial to Israel's ability to keep fighting, one source said. 'The idea was to (allow the military to) operate without pressure, so countries like America wouldn't stop supplying weapons,' a second source said. 'Anything that could bolster Israel's international legitimacy to keep fighting.' The IDF has been approached for comment. On Friday, at least 16 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza, including five who were trying to get food aid, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Israel also issued evacuation orders for northern parts of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood, as it intensified military operations before a planned escalation of the ground war in Gaza, which has been widely criticised domestically and abroad.
