Latest news with #war in Gaza
France 24
15 hours ago
- Business
- France 24
Famine looms in Gaza amid mounting warnings
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Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gaza food situation 'worst it's ever been', charity says – as UK promises £40m in aid
An aid worker in the central Gaza Strip has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is "absolutely desperate" and "the worst it's ever been". Her comments to Sky's come amid fresh international outcry over Israel's restrictions on aid, as the UK has joined together with 24 other countries to say: "The war in Gaza must end now." Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, is in Deir al Balah, a city in central where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement. Middle East latest: She said: "One of my colleagues said to me yesterday, 'We are all walking together towards death'. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza. "There is no food for their children, it's absolutely desperate here." "The markets are empty," she said. "People may even have cash in their pockets yet they cannot buy bread [or] vegetables. "My team have said to me, 'There's nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day." Israel launched a ground assault on Deir al Balah on Monday morning, . Ms Cummings's comments came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire. The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation. "The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," it said. The 25 countries also called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Lammy promises £40m for Gaza aid Foreign Secretary David Lammy later promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. He told MPs: "We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area. "Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism." Addressing the foreign secretaries' joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock - who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza - told Sky News: "While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed. "In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can't get worse, it does." "Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response," she said. "And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we're trying to serve. "An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve." The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage. More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. In recent weeks while waiting for food and aid. The Israeli military has blamed Hamas militants for fomenting chaos and endangering civilians.
Sky News
a day ago
- Health
- Sky News
Gaza food situation 'worst it's ever been', charity says – as UK promises £40m in aid
An aid worker in the central Gaza Strip has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is "absolutely desperate" and "the worst it's ever been". Her comments to Sky's chief presenter Mark Austin come amid fresh international outcry over Israel's restrictions on aid, as the UK has joined together with 24 other countries to say: "The war in Gaza must end now." Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, is in Deir al Balah, a city in central Gaza where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement. She said: "One of my colleagues said to me yesterday, 'We are all walking together towards death'. And this is the situation now for people in Gaza. "The markets are empty," she said. "People may even have cash in their pockets yet they cannot buy bread [or] vegetables. "My team have said to me, 'There's nothing in my house to feed my children, my children are crying all day, every day." Israel launched a ground assault on Deir al Balah on Monday morning, another charity said earlier. Ms Cummings's comments came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire. The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation. "The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," it said. The 25 countries also called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Lammy promises £40m for Gaza aid Foreign Secretary David Lammy later promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. He told MPs: "We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area. "Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism." 2:53 Addressing the foreign secretaries' joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock - who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza - told Sky News: "While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed. "In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can't get worse, it does." "Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response," she said. "And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we're trying to serve. "An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve." The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage. More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. In recent weeks while waiting for food and aid.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
EU seems to suddenly discover it has leverage on Israel
The European Union 's foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has spent a lot of time on the phone to Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar over the last few weeks. For most of Israel's 22-month war in Gaza the EU has been seen as a bystander, paralysed by its inability to come to a joint position. Then word came through late last week that Israel had committed to letting a lot more humanitarian aid into the devastated Palestinian enclave, in a deal brokered by the EU. This would mean a 'substantial' increase in the number of trucks bringing food and other vital aid allowed into Gaza. Food supplies to kitchens and bakeries would resume, power lines to a plant supplying clean drinking water would be repaired, and closed border crossings would be opened, as part of the deal. The promise from Israel to stop choking off the flow of food, medicine and fuel into Gaza was unlikely to have been the result of a sudden change of heart by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu 's government. The concessions were more likely an attempt to head off what had been growing momentum inside the EU to – finally – sanction Israel, or threaten to do so, if the dire conditions in Gaza did not improve. It seems it took nearly two years of a war in which at least 58,000 Palestinians have been killed for the EU to discover it has some leverage over Israel. The 11-week total blockade stopping aid entering Gaza, which left a cohort of its civilian population at risk of starvation, pushed the EU to up the pressure on Israel. An effort started by Ireland and Spain, and more recently taken up by the Dutch, forced a review that found Israel had breached obligations to respect human rights made in an 'association agreement' with the EU. The EU's foreign ministers this week debated a set of options the union could take in response. They included suspending the agreement, which governs EU-Israel relations, or shelving a free trade deal. A paper put on the table by Kallas said the EU could ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, blacklist certain Israeli politicians or end visa-free travel for Israelis to the EU. There has been a huge amount of behind-the-scenes lobbying from Israel recently. That suggests a real concern about the reputational damage of being sanctioned by the EU. The deal on humanitarian aid was announced six days before EU foreign ministers were meeting in Brussels to debate options. The commitment to let more aid into Gaza has shifted the focus on to whether Israel follows through on that pledge, limiting the appetite to press ahead with any penalty for now. Most of the potential sanctions would require the unanimous support of all 27 capitals. That is a non-starter. Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria and Czech Republic have blocked efforts to have the EU hold Israel accountable for its military campaign in Gaza. Suspending the free trade deal only requires a sizeable majority of support. That would be a major blow to Netanyahu, as the EU is Israel's biggest trading partner. However, for that to happen either Germany or Italy would need to switch positions, given their size, to secure enough support to suspend the trade deal. Both governments opposed the EU pursuing any of the proposed sanctions against Israel at the meeting of foreign ministers this week. They pointed to the tentative aid commitments as a win, thanks to backchannel dialogue with Israel. 'If the threat of the stick is not plausible then you have no leverage,' says Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, a former EU ambassador to the Palestinian territories. The EU's response to Israel's war in Gaza had been defined by a 'complete absence of action', he says. There was a big question mark over whether Israel would stick to commitments it had made in its agreement with the EU, he says. One note of caution should be the fact Kallas has not said how many extra aid trucks Israel has agreed to let enter Gaza a day. Kühn von Burgsdorff served as head of the EU mission to the West Bank and Gaza from 2020 until mid-2023, where he says he 'saw the injustice before my eyes'. A German who spent 31 years as a diplomat for the EU, Kühn von Burgsdorff says the union's timid response to Israel's bombardment of Gaza is a 'disaster' for its standing in the world. It is a point the governments of Ireland and Spain have been making since the start of the conflict. 'It's about who we are, the Europeans, how we want our voice to be heard and influence the world,' Spain's foreign minister José Manuel Albares said this week. 'Europe is about human rights, about democracy, about international law and that's what we should uphold, whether it is in Ukraine or in Gaza,' he said.
Washington Post
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Netanyahu's coalition is rattled as ultra-Orthodox party announces exit over military draft law
TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli ultra-Orthodox party that has been a key governing partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Tuesday it was leaving the coalition government, threatening to destabilize the Israeli leader's rule at a pivotal time in the war in Gaza. United Torah Judaism's two factions said they were bolting the government over disagreements surrounding a bill that would codify broad military draft exemptions for their constituents, many of whom study Jewish texts instead of enlist to the military. The issue has long divided Jewish Israelis, most of whom are required to enlist, a rift that has only widened since the war in Gaza began and demands on military manpower grew.
