With famine looming, aid group halts food delivery in Gaza after Israeli strike kills 7 workers

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United Nations staff members inspect the carcass of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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People gather around the bodies of World Central Kitchen workers at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on April 1, 2024, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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A Palestinian man rides a bicycle past a damaged vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza, Strip April 2, 2024. (REUTERS)
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People gather around the car of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 03 April 2024
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With famine looming, aid group halts food delivery in Gaza after Israeli strike kills 7 workers

  • The dead from Monday night’s strikes included three British citizens, Polish and Australia nationals, a Canadian-American dual national and a Palestinian
  • Israel has killed over 32,705 Palestinians in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Some of Israel’s closest allies on Tuesday condemned the deaths of seven aid workers who were killed by airstrikes in Gaza — a loss that prompted multiple charities to suspend food deliveries to Palestinians on the brink of starvation.
The deaths of the World Central Kitchen workers threatened to set back efforts by the US and other countries to open a maritime corridor for aid from Cyprus to help ease the desperate conditions in northern Gaza.
Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid from the charitable group turned back from Gaza just a day after arriving, according to Cyprus. Other humanitarian aid organizations also suspended operations in Gaza, saying it was too dangerous to offer help. Israel has allowed only a trickle of food and supplies into Gaza’s devastated north, where experts say famine is imminent.
The dead from Monday night’s strikes included three British citizens, Polish and Australia nationals, a Canadian-American dual national and a Palestinian. Those countries have been key backers of Israel’s nearly 6-month-old offensive in Gaza, and several of them denounced the killings.
Israel already faces growing isolation as international criticism of the Gaza assault has mounted. On the same day as the deadly airstrikes, Israel stirred more fears by apparently striking Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killing two Iranian generals. The government also moved to shut down a foreign media outlet — Qatari-owned Al Jazeera television.
The hit on the charity’s convoy also highlighted what critics have called Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and lack of regard for civilian casualties in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the military had carried out the “unintended strike ... on innocent people.” He said officials were investigating and would work to ensure it does not happen again.
World Central Kitchen said it had coordinated with the Israeli military over the movement of its cars. Three vehicles moving at large distances apart were hit in succession. They were left incinerated and mangled, indicating multiple targeted strikes.
At least one of the vehicles had the charity’s logo printed across its roof to make it identifiable from the air, and the ordnance punched a large hole through the roof. Footage showed the bodies at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, several of them wearing protective gear with the charity’s logo.
Israeli TV said the initial military investigation found that the army identified the cars carrying World Central Kitchen’s workers arriving at its warehouse in Deir Al-Balah and observed suspected militants nearby. Half an hour later, the vehicles were struck by the air force as they headed south. The reports said it was not clear who ordered the strikes or why.
Throughout the war, Israel has said it seeks to avoid civilian casualties and uses sophisticated intelligence to target Hamas and other militants. Israeli authorities blame them for civilian deaths because they operate in populated areas.
At the same time, Israel has also insisted that no target is off-limits. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck ambulances and vehicles carrying aid, as well as relief organization offices and UN shelters, claiming that armed fighters were in them.
Israeli forces have also shown a readiness to inflict widespread destruction on suspicion of a militant presence or out of tactical need. Homes with Palestinian families sheltering inside are leveled by strikes almost daily with no explanation of the intended target. Videos of strikes released by the military often show them hitting individuals without visible weapons, while identifying them as militants.
More than 32,900 Palestinians have been killed in the war, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Celebrity chef José Andrés, who founded the World Central Kitchen charity, said he was “heartbroken” by the deaths of the staffers.
“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The US, Britain, Poland, Australia and Canada all called on Israel to give answers on the deaths. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant launched an investigation and ordered the opening of a joint situation room enabling coordination between the military and aid groups.
But anger among its allies could put new pressure on Israel.
The British government summoned Israel’s ambassador for a rebuke and called for an immediate humanitarian pause to allow more aid in and the release of hostages.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Netanyahu that he was “appalled” by the workers’ deaths and described the situation in Gaza as “increasingly intolerable.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was “outraged” to hear of the strikes. He said the Israeli military “must do much more” to avoid conflict and ensure the safety of aid convoys.
A senior Canadian government official said there will be a joint formal diplomatic rebuke at the foreign ministry in Israel on Wednesday. The official also said a top official with Canada’s Global Affairs department made a formal representation to Israel ambassador’s to Canada on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The deaths sent a further chill through UN agencies and other aid groups that have said for months that sending truck convoys around Gaza — particularly in the north — has been extremely difficult because of the military’s failure to either grant permission or ensure safe passage. Israel has barred UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza, from making deliveries to the north.
The US and other countries have been working to set up the sea passage from Cyprus to get around the difficulties.
World Central Kitchen was key to the new route. It and the United Arab Emirates sent a pilot shipment last month. Their second delivery of around 400 tons of food and supplies arrived in three ships to Gaza hours before the strikes on the convoy.
Around 100 tons were unloaded before the charity suspended operations, and the rest was being taken back to Cyprus, Cypriot Foreign Ministry spokesman Theodoros Gotsis said.
Still, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Tuesday that ship deliveries would continue.
Anera, a Washington-based aid group that has been operating in the Palestinian territories for decades, said that in the wake of the strikes it was taking the “unprecedented” step of pausing its own operations in Gaza, where it had been helping to provide around 150,000 meals daily.
“The escalating risks associated with aid delivery leave us with no choice,” it said in a statement.
Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said the strikes were “not an isolated incident.” The UN says more than 180 humanitarian workers have been killed in the war.
“This is nearly three times the death toll recorded in any single conflict in a year,” he said.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive offensives in recent history.
Two other Israeli strikes late Monday killed at least 16 Palestinians, including eight children, in Rafah, where Israel has vowed to expand its ground operation. The city on the Egyptian border is now home to some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of whom have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.
One strike hit a family home, killing 10 people, including five children, according to hospital records. Another hit a gathering near a mosque, killing at least six people, including three children.

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Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II as he escalates pressure on his Gaza resettlement plan

Updated 9 sec ago
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Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II as he escalates pressure on his Gaza resettlement plan

  • King Abdullah II’s visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza
  • Jordan, home to more than 2 million Palestinians, flatly rejected Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday as he escalates pressure on the Arab nation to take in refugees from Gaza — perhaps permanently — as part of his audacious plan to remake the Middle East.
The visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza as Hamas, accusing Israel of violating the truce, has said it is pausing future releases of hostages and as Trump has called for Israel to resume fighting if all those remaining in captivity are not freed by this weekend.
Trump has proposed the US take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” with Palestinians in the war-torn territory pushed into neighboring nations with no right of return.
He suggested on Monday that, if necessary, he would withhold US funding from Jordan and Egypt, longtime US allies and among the top recipients of its foreign aid, as a means of persuading them to accept additional Palestinians from Gaza.
“Yeah, maybe. Sure, why not?” Trump told reporters. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”
Jordan is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and, along with other Arab states, has flatly rejected Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said last week that his country’s opposition to Trump’s idea was “firm and unwavering.”
In addition to concerns about jeopardizing the long-held goals of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised security concerns about welcoming large numbers of additional refugees into their countries even temporarily.
When asked how he’d persuade Abdullah to take in Palestinians, Trump told reporters, “I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also. They have good hearts.”
The king is also meeting with top Trump administration officials during his visit, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He is the third foreign leader to hold an in-person meeting with Trump since his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump announced his ideas for resettling Palestinians from Gaza and taking ownership of the territory for the US during a press conference last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump initially didn’t rule out deploying US troops to help secure Gaza but at the same time insisted no US funds would go to pay for the reconstruction of the territory, raising fundamental questions about the nature of his plan.
After Trump’s initial comments, Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that Trump only wanted Palestinians relocated from Gaza “temporarily” and sought an “interim” period to allow for debris removal, the disposal of unexploded ordnance and reconstruction.
But asked in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that aired Monday if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory under his plan, he replied, “No, they wouldn’t.”

Trump says Hamas should free all hostages by midday Saturday or ‘let hell break out’

Updated 11 February 2025
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Trump says Hamas should free all hostages by midday Saturday or ‘let hell break out’

  • Trump said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don’t take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza. He is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Hamas should release all hostages held by the militant group in Gaza by midday Saturday or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and “let hell break out.”
Trump cautioned that Israel might want to override him on the issue and said he might speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But in a wide-ranging session with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump expressed frustration with the condition of the last group of hostages freed by Hamas and by the announcement by the militant group that it would halt further releases.
“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock, I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Trump said.
He said he wanted the hostages released en masse, instead of a few at a time. “We want ‘em all back.”
Trump also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don’t take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza. He is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday.
The comments came on a day of some confusion over Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza once the fighting stops.
He said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.
In an excerpt of an interview with Fox News channel’s Bret Baier broadcast on Monday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the US gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.”
Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump said: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.”
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.
In a shock announcement on Feb. 4 after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians and the US taking control of the seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

IGNITE THE REGION
Trump’s suggestion of Palestinian displacement has been repeatedly rejected by Gaza residents and Arab states, and labeled by rights advocates and the United Nations as a proposal of ethnic cleansing.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.”
“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters on Monday.
Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the office, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim,” during reconstruction, although he declined to explicitly rule out their permanent displacement.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the disparity between Rubio and Trump’s most recent remarks on the plan.
Trump’s comments come as a fragile ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas is at risk of collapse after Hamas announced on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli hostages over alleged Israeli violations of the agreement.
Israel’s Arab neighbors, including Egypt and Jordan, have said any plan to transfer Palestinians from their land would destabilize the region.
Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington on Monday. Egypt’s foreign ministry said Abdelatty told Rubio that Arab countries support Palestinians in rejecting Trump’s plan. Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza.
Trump said in the Fox News interview that between two and six communities could be built for the Palestinians “a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.” “I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent,” he said.

 


Dozens of Palestinian families flee Israeli operation in West Bank

Updated 11 February 2025
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Dozens of Palestinian families flee Israeli operation in West Bank

  • The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of applying “the same policy of destruction” in the West Bank as in Gaza

NUR SHAMS, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of Palestinian families fled on Monday from the Nur Shams refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank, as Israel pushed on with a sweeping military operation.
“We hear explosions and bombings as well as bulldozers. It’s a tragedy. They are doing here what they did in Gaza,” said Ahmed Ezza, a resident.
Ahmed Abu Zahra, another resident of the camp which is on the outskirts of Tulkarem, said he was forced to leave his home.
“The (Israeli) army came and we were forced to leave after they started destroying our homes.”
Three Palestinians, including two women and a young man, were killed on Sunday in Nur Shams, the health ministry in the territory said.
Israel said its military police had opened an investigation into the death of one of them, a woman who was eight months pregnant.
It said on Saturday it had launched an operation in Nur Shams, part of a much larger campaign that began in January in Tulkarem and Jenin, which it said had “targeted several terrorists.”
In the streets of Nur Shams camp, under a light rain, residents were fleeing.
An AFP photographer saw dozens of families hastily leaving the camp, while bulldozers carried out large-scale demolitions amid gunfire and explosions.
According to Murad Alyan, from the camp’s popular committee, “more than half of the 13,000 inhabitants have fled out of fear for their lives.”
Since January 21, the Israeli military has been conducting a major operation in the “triangle” of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem, where half a million Palestinians live.
Israel says it is targeting “terrorist infrastructure.”
Jenin in particular is a bastion of armed Palestinian militant groups.
“What we are living through is without precedent,” Ahmad Al-Assaad, the governor of Tubas, told AFP.
The Israeli operations “today did not target fighters, but civilians, women and children, and they blew houses to pressure residents into leaving.”
According to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Israel was pursuing an “all-our war on the Palestinian people.”
“Since the ceasefire began in Gaza, the West Bank has been on fire,” it said in a post on X, referring to the truce agreement that halted the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on January 19.
“The objective of these operations is not security-related, but political,” said Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Tulkarem.
“They destroy everything,” he said of the Israeli military. “They are trying to change the demographics of the region.”
Israel insists that its operations are targeted at Palestinians suspected of preparing attacks against Israeli citizens.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of applying “the same policy of destruction” in the West Bank as in Gaza.
Violence has exploded in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
At least 887 Palestinians, including militants, have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 32 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.


Former UK Supreme Court judge claims Israel’s Gaza assault is ‘grossly disproportionate’

Updated 11 February 2025
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Former UK Supreme Court judge claims Israel’s Gaza assault is ‘grossly disproportionate’

  • Jonathan Sumption speaks ahead of publication of his new book

LONDON: Jonathan Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court judge, has described Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “grossly disproportionate,” and added there was “at least an arguable case” that they were genocidal.

Speaking ahead of the release of his new book, “The Challenges of Democracy: And The Rule of Law,” Sumption explained to The Guardian newspaper why he signed a letter last year accusing the UK government of breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.

He said: “I thought — and I still think — that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there’s at least an arguable case that it’s genocidal. One can’t put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent. That’s quite a difficult thing to establish but I read the provisional decision of the International Court (of Justice) and it seemed to me that they were saying that that was an arguable proposition.

“Given that the obligation of parties to the genocide convention is proactively to prevent it happening and not just to react after the event, I thought that the authors of the letter — and I wasn’t the draftsman — had got a point.”

Israel has denied committing genocide, maintaining that its military operations were acts of self-defense while also rejecting the ICJ’s findings.

Sumption’s book, which is published on Thursday, focuses on perceived threats to democracy, including restrictions on free speech. He expresses concern over how certain opinions, particularly those supporting Palestinian rights, have been suppressed in some countries.

He said: “I think that supporters of the Palestinian cause have had a rough time in a number of European jurisdictions, notably Germany, where there’s been direct — and government — moves to suppress that strand of thought altogether.

“We haven’t got anywhere near as close to things as that … but there’s certainly been a lot of calls for toughness on pro-Palestine demonstrations, which assume, without actually saying, that it’s perfectly obvious that support for Palestine is wrong. I don’t think it’s wrong.”


Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border

Updated 10 February 2025
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Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border

  • Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs near the Lebanese border this week
  • Forces raided locations involved in the production and packaging of various drugs

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has launched attacks on Syrian security forces and is sponsoring cross-border smuggling gangs, the new Syrian authorities said on Monday, according to state media.
Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs this week, most of whom were affiliated with Hezbollah, but did not target Lebanese territory, Lt. Col. Moayed Al-Salama said in a statement carried by official news agency SANA.
Hezbollah was allied to former Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, who was toppled by opposition rebels in December.
The new authorities in Damascus launched anti-smuggling operations last week at the Lebanese-Syria border, where the Iranian-backed group holds sway.
“Most smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border are affiliated with the Hezbollah militia, whose presence now poses a threat at the Syrian border because it sponsors drug and weapon smugglers,” Salama was reported as saying.
“We have developed a comprehensive plan to fully control the borders,” said the official, whom SANA described as the commander for the western region in the Border Security Administration.
“We confirm that we did not target the Lebanese interior, despite shelling from the Hezbollah militia reaching our units,” Salama said.
On Saturday, the Lebanese army said it responded to incoming fire from across the Syrian border, two days after the new authorities in Damascus said they had launched operations against smugglers there.
The army did not name those responsible for firing toward Lebanon.
He blamed “the defunct regime” for turning “the Syrian-Lebanese border into corridors for the drug trade in cooperation with the Hezbollah militia, promoting the presence of armed smuggling gangs.”
Operations “were limited to Syrian border villages, targeting the armed smuggling gangs and remnants (of the Assad government) and militias who fought with them,” he added.
Syrian forces seized “farms, warehouses and factories for the production and packaging of hashish and captagon pills,” he said, referring to the potent synthetic drug which Syria mass-produced under Assad.
They also found presses specialized in printing counterfeit currency, he said, as well as as shipments of weapons and drugs that were about to cross in.
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria, with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Assad’s fall in December disrupted Hezbollah’s arms supply lines through the land border with Syria.