logo
Israel's Gaza blockade causing severe humanitarian crisis, says Tok Mat

Israel's Gaza blockade causing severe humanitarian crisis, says Tok Mat

The Star5 days ago
SEREMBAN: The ongoing blockade imposed by Israel in Gaza has severely restricted the delivery of humanitarian assistance, leading to critical shortages of food, clean water, medical supplies and fuel, says Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan ( pic ).
The Foreign Minister said these developments have raised urgent fears of an imminent famine, with starvation and malnutrition already severely affecting thousands of civilians, particularly children.
"Malaysia expresses grave, continuing concern over the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as a result of the relentless genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel's Zionist regime.
"Since October 2023, more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 150,000 injured, with 1.9 million Palestinians forcibly displaced amid the unrelenting aggression of Israel's Zionist regime," he said in a statement.
Mohamad said Malaysia was also deeply alarmed by the unfolding humanitarian crisis that the world has witnessed silently for the past 22 months.
He also condemned the brutal killings of more than 1,300 Palestinians waiting in line to receive aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation since May of this year, adding that this must be investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.
Malaysia, he said, wished to reiterate in the strongest terms that the Israeli government must stop the killings, cease all attempts at forced displacement of Palestinians, and immediately end all blockades of humanitarian access to ensure unimpeded access to aid.
Failure by Israel is a violation of international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law.
"We note the outcome of the recent high-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Questions of Palestine and Implementation of the two-state solution held in New York, which saw widespread international support for the realisation of a two-state solution with a call for urgent and sustained humanitarian assistance as well as a raft of other initiatives.
"We welcome the international community's shift to condemn Israel and move towards pragmatic, action-oriented measures to resolve the question of securing Palestinian statehood," he said.
Malaysia, he said, reaffirms its unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people and their inalienable right to self-determination.
It also remains steadfast in supporting the establishment of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine's rightful membership in the United Nations.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

When AI image checks mislocate news photos
When AI image checks mislocate news photos

New Straits Times

time20 minutes ago

  • New Straits Times

When AI image checks mislocate news photos

AN image by AFP photojournalist Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal, underfed girl in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has fuelled fears of mass famine in the Palestinian territory. But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when Internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a 7-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows 9-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on Aug 2, 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25kg, said her mother. Today, she weighs only 9kg. The only nutrition she gets to help her condition is milk, said Modallala — and even that's "not always available". Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error — but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. Grok's mistakes illustrated the limits of AI tools, whose functions were as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, Hello ChatGPT. Each AI had biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI startup, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of United States President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI did not necessarily seek accuracy — "that's not the goal", said the expert. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to Internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning — the so-called alignment phase — which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," said Diesbach. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat — which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French startup and the news agency — the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said. "You have to look at it like a friendly pathological liar — it may not always lie, but it always could."

Israel army chief vows to express military stance without fear
Israel army chief vows to express military stance without fear

The Sun

time3 hours ago

  • The Sun

Israel army chief vows to express military stance without fear

JERUSALEM: Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir vowed to continue expressing the military's position 'without fear' ahead of a key security cabinet meeting. The meeting is expected to discuss war plans for Gaza amid reported disagreements between the cabinet and Zamir. 'We will continue to express our position without fear, in a pragmatic, independent, and professional manner,' Zamir said in a military statement. Israeli media reported the security cabinet would meet later in the day, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likely seeking approval for a full Gaza takeover. Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier stated the military must execute any government decision on Gaza, following reports Zamir opposed the plan. 'We are not dealing with theory—we are dealing with matters of life and death, with the defence of the state,' Zamir emphasised. He added the military would act with 'responsibility, integrity, and determination' for Israel's security. Katz affirmed the military must respect government policies while acknowledging Zamir's right to express his stance in appropriate forums. – AFP

Scotland To Consider Imposing Formal Boycott On Israel
Scotland To Consider Imposing Formal Boycott On Israel

Barnama

time3 hours ago

  • Barnama

Scotland To Consider Imposing Formal Boycott On Israel

A demonstrator holds flags next to police officers at Balmedie Beach, on the day of the visit of U.S. President Donald Trump, near Trump International Golf Links, in Balmedie, Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. REUTERS/Hannah McKay LONDON, Aug 7 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The Scottish government is considering whether to impose a formal boycott on Israel after the Greens co-leader urged First Minister John Swinney to adopt the principles of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported. As Scottish daily The National reported on Thursday, the Greens' Ross Greer called for sweeping measures including official guidance to businesses, cutting funding to arms firms linked to Israel, and enabling councils to exclude companies involved in the occupation of Palestinian territories. A Scottish government spokesperson confirmed that Cabinet ministers will 'consider' the proposal. bootstrap slideshow The BDS movement seeks to apply economic and political pressure on Israel similar to the international boycott of apartheid-era South Africa. The move would mirror anti-apartheid boycotts and target firms linked to Israeli occupation, arms trade, and settlement activity. Greer's letter to Swinney called for official guidance to be issued to Scottish businesses, encouraging them to end trade with Israel, a move similar to measures taken against Russia in 2022 following the start of the Ukraine war. Greer also urged the government to repeal part of the UK's Local Government Act 1988, which currently restricts councils from excluding companies from contracts based on political criteria. He suggested amending the Community Wealth Building Bill to enable local authorities to bar firms involved in 'the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.' Greer further called for an end to public funding for arms companies that have supplied Israel 'during the genocide' and for the government to cut ties with 'all other companies directly complicit in the occupation.' He added that pension funds should be encouraged to divest from companies 'complicit in Israel's apartheid regime,' and proposed that financial penalties be imposed on such companies.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store