US envoy Steve Witkoff visits Gaza amid food crisis and conflict
'I have the impression that this has been understood today.'
Even as Wadephul met Israeli leaders, the armed wing of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad released a video showing German-Israeli hostage Rom Braslavksi.
In the six-minute video, Braslavski, speaking in Hebrew, is seen watching recent news footage of the crisis in Gaza. He identifies himself and pleads with the Israeli government to secure his release.
Braslavski was a security guard at the Nova music festival, one of the sites targeted by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters in the October 2023 attack that sparked the Gaza war.
In an example of the deadly problems facing aid efforts in Gaza, the territory's civil defence agency said that at least 58 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd attempting to block an aid convoy.
Hungry crowd
The Israeli military said troops had fired 'warning shots' as Gazans gathered around the aid trucks. An AFP correspondent saw stacks of bullet-riddled corpses in Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital.
Jameel Ashour, who lost a relative in the shooting, told AFP at the overflowing morgue that Israeli troops opened fire after 'people saw thieves stealing and dropping food and the hungry crowd rushed in hopes of getting some'.
Witkoff has been the top US representative in indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas but talks in Doha broke down last week and Israel and the United States recalled their delegations.
Israel is under mounting international pressure to agree a ceasefire and allow the world to flood Gaza with food, with Canada and Portugal the latest Western governments to announce plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
International pressure
Trump criticised Canada's decision and, in a post on his Truth Social network, placed the blame for the crisis squarely on Palestinian militant group Hamas.
'The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!' declared Trump, one of Israel's staunchest international supporters.
Earlier this week, however, the US President contradicted Netanyahu's insistence that reports of hunger in Gaza were exaggerated, warning that the territory faces 'real starvation'.
UN-backed experts have reported 'famine is now unfolding' in Gaza, with images of sick and emaciated children drawing international outrage.
The US State Department said it would deny visas to officials from the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank – the core of any future Palestinian state.
'This is what death looks like'
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 people seized, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli military.
The Israeli offensive, nearing its 23rd month, has killed at least 60,249 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry.
This week UN aid agencies said deaths from starvation had begun.
The civil defence agency said Israeli attacks across Gaza on Thursday killed at least 32 people.
'Enough!' cried Najah Aish Umm Fadi, who lost relatives in a strike on a camp for the displaced in central Gaza.
'We put up with being hungry, but now the death of children who had just been born?'
Further north, Amir Zaqot told AFP after getting his hands on some of the aid parachuted from planes, that 'this is what death looks like. People are fighting each other with knives'.
'If the crossings were opened ... food could reach us. But this is nonsense,' Zaqot said of the airdrops.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence and other parties.
- Agence France-Presse
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NZ Herald
9 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Hostage videos show emaciated Israelis, Hamas blames Israel for starvation
David's sister, Ye'ela, said watching the clip of her emaciated brother felt like 'one million punches to the heart'. She pleaded with the public not to share the images, as her mother and other brother had not yet seen the footage. Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic Jihad terrorist group released a video of hostage Rom Braslavski, 21, also looking emaciated. The terror group claimed the six-minute video was recorded days before it lost contact with the captors holding Braslavski, saying it did not know what had happened to him. His mother, Tami, said the terrorists had 'broken' her son. 'They broke my boy. I want him home now. I know how many beatings he is taking. Look at him. Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out. Don't cry over the children in Gaza. Cry for Rom. Have compassion for the hostages,' she told Israeli media Ynet. With two hostage videos released in 24 hours, both of which blame Israel for starving the people of Gaza, Hamas seeks to increase international pressure on the Israeli Government. Aid agencies, including the UN, are warning that hunger and malnutrition may have reached a tipping point, raising fears of mass starvation. Israel has denied accusations of starving Palestinians, instead pointing the finger at the UN for failing to collect and distribute the food that enters through border crossings. US President Donald Trump said this week that starvation was happening in Gaza, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's denials. 'You can't fake that,' he said on Tuesday, adding that he was 'not particularly' convinced by his ally. Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy, spent five hours visiting controversial aid distribution sites in the war-battered enclave on Friday. Witkoff, the first senior official to visit Gaza since the war began, said that what he learnt would help Washington 'craft a plan' to get more food and aid to Palestinians. On Friday, 126 aid packages, containing food for the residents of the southern and northern Gaza Strip, were airdropped by France, Spain, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Germany, the Israel Defence Forces said. Witkoff and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador for Israel, toured one of the four sites run by the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Aid agencies have accused the foundation of contributing to the hunger crisis. More than 1300 people seeking aid in Gaza have been killed since GHF took over aid operations in late May, according to the UN, most of them shot by Israeli forces 'in the vicinity' of the aid hubs. GHF has denied the claims. Israel claims Hamas is looting aid for its own fighters, thus enabling accusations the Jewish state is deliberately starving Palestinians. Hamas denies this. Eli Sharabi, an Israeli former hostage, testified before the UN Security Council in March that 'Hamas eats like kings, while hostages starve'. Sharabi said: 'I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNRWA emblems on them into the tunnels, dozens and dozens of boxes, paid for by your Government. They would eat many meals a day from the UN aid in front of us, and we never received any of it.'
NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Israeli troops fire warning shots as UN aid convoy looted in Gaza
The result, according to humanitarian officials, is that conditions for vulnerable residents who live inside Gaza remain dire – with little of the aid being sent in reaching those who need it most, while injuries and deaths are rising during attempts by the United Nations to distribute food – because Israeli troops open fire to keep swelling crowds away from the convoys and from Israeli checkpoints. The Gaza Health Ministry has recorded at least 209 deaths among people seeking aid since last Saturday, when Israel announced it would allow more food deliveries into the enclave, in part, Israeli officials said, 'to refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip'. The world's leading body on hunger crises said this week that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out' in Gaza. At least 154 people have died of malnutrition since the start of the war, the vast majority of them in July, according to local health officials. 'There's going to be a period of these scenes of mobbing aid convoys until an adequate and consistent level of aid is flowing in,' said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a US official overseeing humanitarian efforts during the Biden and Obama administrations. 'That is an inevitable and unavoidable outcome of the level of deprivation that the Israeli Government has imposed on Gaza through the blockade this spring.' On Friday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff visited Gaza to assess the situation. 'This morning I joined @SEPeaceMissions Steve Witkoff for a visit to Gaza to learn the truth about @GHFUpdates aid sites,' Huckabee posted on X. 'We received briefings from @IDF and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!' The 100 million meals delivered so far, however, amount to less than one meal per day per person in Gaza. Many of the products must be cooked and therefore require fuel and water, which are not readily available. A former Israeli military official, who has knowledge of the operations in Gaza, acknowledged that there was a 'total breakdown of order' caused by an Israeli military campaign that dismantled Hamas but never installed an alternative governing body. Criminal gangs are rampantly looting and ordinary civilians believe every aid truck they encounter may be their last, the official said. UN officials said while some of the looting is being carried out by armed gangs, the vast majority of people hauling food from the trucks are desperately hungry civilians trying to feed their families. 'Without a ceasefire, people are under so much mental stress thinking, 'This might end soon, this is my one chance to get what I can for my family',' said the former Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the situation in Gaza. 'When Israel says we're going to let the aid enter now, at this point it's great PR, but it's too little, too late.' Although Israel and other foreign governments announced they would airdrop food beginning on Saturday, the aerial missions do not deliver a volume that changes the humanitarian situation in a significant way, officials say. Another effort, the food distribution centres operated in southern Gaza, has also been marred by chaos and shootings. More than 1000 aid seekers have been killed, including by Israeli gunfire, near the sites since operations began in May, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The UN's struggle to get its aid into Gaza is particularly concerning because UN agencies long ran the largest food distribution network in the territory. In March, after a temporary ceasefire, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, halting all aid. When Israel came under pressure to lift the siege, it sidelined UN operations in favour of the US-backed GHF, saying that UN aid was being diverted by Hamas – a claim disputed by Western and UN officials. Today, hundreds of community kitchens and warehouses across Gaza that were once supplied by regular UN convoys have not been allowed by Israel to restart, said a UN official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive, ongoing negotiations with Israel. Mona Qadoum, a 45-year-old mother of five in Gaza City, said she is surviving on canned lentils she saved from aid packages she received before the Israeli blockade in March. She ran out of flour, which now sells for more than US$10 ($17) for 450g, and oil, which sells for US$25 a bottle. She blamed looters for stealing aid shipments and selling them for exorbitant prices on the market. Two weeks ago, she began to beg for food. 'They say aid trucks have entered Gaza, so why hasn't any of it been distributed? You tell me,' Qadoum said from her mother-in-law's home, where she lives after selling her tent to buy food. 'Only the looters and thieves have taken anything.' UN employees and Israeli officials and soldiers who spoke to the Post agree that the situation on al-Rashid St is typical of almost every aid delivery in recent days and weeks. But they offer different reasons for the system's breakdown. UN officials say one problem is that they have been refused permission from Israeli officials to use other, less crowded routes; Israel has issued displacement orders for about 80% of Gaza's territory and marked those areas as closed military zones. As a result, UN convoys can only travel into Gaza through two routes – one in the north and one in the south – that go through crowded areas, UN officials say. And although Israeli authorities have approved more aid trucks since last Saturday, the convoys usually are permitted to depart only late in the day, when huge crowds have already gathered along the known routes, further raising the prospect of looting. For months, the UN and humanitarian partners have pushed Israeli authorities to open more border crossings. As the crisis worsened, Israel provided UN agencies with written assurances that by the end of June more border crossings would be opened, at least 100 trucks per day would enter Gaza, and no Israeli forces would be present along convoy routes or distribution warehouses, the UN official familiar with ongoing negotiations said. But none of it materialised. A video taken this week from a UN aid convoy in southern Gaza – and published by the office of the UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator – shows hundreds of Palestinians crouching along the side of a dusty road as gunfire strafes the ground, close to their feet, keeping them back. It's not clear whether the shooting comes from Israeli military positions. As the UN cars approach, the shooting pauses and the civilians, mostly teenagers and young men clutching empty sacks and backpacks, immediately swarm the convoy. Other people involved in transporting aid say that driving along known routes is so dangerous they have to careen at high speeds down crowded, potholed roads. Sometimes, drivers on Gaza's main artery, Salah al-Din Rd, hit people as they try to veer through a line of looters hurling rocks and firing guns, said Bilal Abu Mugheisab, 35. Abu Mugheisab works for his family's trucking and security company, which he said has a subcontract to provide armed escorts for trucks ferrying goods for World Central Kitchen and the United Arab Emirates, among other donors. 'Some people throw themselves in front of the trucks, putting their lives at risk,' Abu Mugheisab said. 'People may get run over by these aid trucks. Drivers can't see a thing, and that's how accidents happen.' He said it would be safer to drive down another road instead of Salah al-Din, but he had no choice: the other road fell within Israel's no-go zone. Israeli officials, in response, say that they cannot easily approve new routes in combat zones. They say the UN, citing humanitarian principles governing neutrality during armed conflicts, has turned down offers from the Israel Defence Forces and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs private security forces, to protect its convoys. 'They say the Israeli offer will harm their neutrality, but they're the ones picking sides and then complaining about the Israeli side,' an Israeli official said. Still, the proximity of IDF positions to aid convoys means Israeli troops frequently fire toward crowds or other armed groups that are not aligned with Hamas but seek to maintain order, exacerbating the security situation, UN officials and Palestinian witnesses say. It is often difficult to discern between armed members of local clans and Hamas militants, and Israeli troops are routinely instructed to fire on any armed actors who approach aid trucks, the former Israeli military official and an Israeli special forces unit commander said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. On Monday, two days before the massive mob overran the UN convoy on al-Rashid St, a similar bout of violence took place on the same coastal stretch, just blocks away, according to two witnesses. Ahmad Maher Abu al-Qarayer, a resident of northern Gaza, said armed local security forces – a combination of people working for the Government, police and local clans – ran into the IDF no-go zone about 6.30pm to arrest a gang of organised looters who had set upon a truck convoy carrying goods from the World Food Programme and even opened fire on them. Moments later, a missile from an Israeli drone struck the security forces, killing more than a half-dozen of their men, Qarayer said. 'In a moment, everything was turned upside down,' recalled Mohamed Tamous, a volunteer with the Gaza civil defence force and a paramedic who was also at the scene. Tamous was shocked, he said, because the Israelis appeared to intentionally target people securing the convoy but allowed people to 'storm in and loot the aid'. In response to questions from the Post, the IDF said it 'struck several Hamas terrorists who were waiting for aid trucks to reach northern Gaza in order to loot them', without providing proof that its targets were Hamas. 'Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in the Gaza Strip,' the military said. Qarayer, who witnessed the drone strike Monday, said he was 'lucky': the 33-year-old was strong enough to pull 10kg of rice from the trucks amid the carnage and run back home to his six children. 'But some people can't go to grab any aid,' he said. 'There are injured people, children and elderly people.' Despite the chaos and the danger, Qarayer said he was considering going back soon to wait for another UN convoy on al-Rashid Rd. 'I don't have any flour. Maybe I'll go back and try again,' he said. 'Whatever happens, happens.'
RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Russian drone strikes on Ukraine hits all-time record in July
Ukrainian emergency workers amid the rubble of a residential building after an air attack in Kyiv on 31 July 2025. Photo: Sergii Volsky / AFP Russia fired more drones at Ukraine in July than in any month since it launched its 2022 invasion, intensifying its deadly bombardment of the country, as peace talks stalled, an AFP analysis shows. The analysis released on Friday (local time) used data published by Ukraine's air force, showing Russia fired 6297 long-range drones into Ukraine last month - up nearly 16 percent compared with June and the third straight monthly increase. Russia also fired 198 missiles into Ukraine in July, more than in any month this year except June, according to the data. The attacks, which trigger air raid sirens and send civilians scrambling for shelter, took place every night of the month. The Kremlin has consistently rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine, saying it saw no immediate diplomatic way out of its nearly three-and-a-half-year invasion. Three rounds of direct negotiation between Moscow and Kyiv since May have failed to yield a peace deal. Russia's escalation of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine led to a three-year high in the number of civilians killed or wounded in June, the United Nations said last month. A combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early Thursday killed at least 31 people, 28 of whom were in a nine-storey apartment block partially reduced to rubble by a missile, authorities said. Five of the dead were children, rescue service spokesperson Pavlo Petrov said. US President Donald Trump, who has become increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin's refusal to accept a ceasefire, has given Moscow until next Friday to reach a deal or face sweeping sanctions. Footage on Russian state TV from the military channel Zvezda shows deadly attack drones being assembled in what it calls the biggest drone factory in the world. Photo: Zvezda / AFP Russia has ramped up its drone production to an industrial scale since the war began. Ukraine has sought to roll out new air defences in response, tasking manufacturers with producing thousands of cheap interceptor drones to destroy their Russian counterparts. - AFP
