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Gazans are in desperate need of essentials after more than 21 months of war, but efforts to get aid into the Palestinian territory — and to its hungry residents — face major obstacles.UN agencies and aid organisations cite Israeli restrictions, safety issues and the establishment of a US- and Israeli-backed mechanism that has sidelined the humanitarian system in place.Israel says international organisations have failed, and that the previous UN-led system had allowed Hamas militants to loot aid trucks.On the ground, meanwhile, more than 100 aid and human rights groups warned this week that “mass starvation” was spreading.- GHF: few sites, deadly incidents -Israel’s chosen aid distributor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), began operations on May 26 after a more than two-month total aid blockade.Now the main channel for distributing food to Gaza’s more than two million people, GHF has faced chaos and deadly violence at its few distribution points.The United Nations and aid groups have refused to work with GHF, saying it was created to serve Israeli military interests.”They are not a humanitarian organisation… You don’t deliver humanitarian aid in areas that have been completely flattened and militarised,” said Arwa Damon, founder of INARA, a US-based NGO offering medical and mental health support to children.She noted the GHF’s site locations — along two military corridors in southern and central Gaza — rather than being spread out across the territory.With only four GHG sites and huge crowds trying to reach them, there have been repeated reports of deadly fire near them. According to UN figures, Israeli forces have killed some 800 Palestinian aid-seekers near GHF sites since late May.Israel has rejected calls to restore the UN-led system, citing concerns that Hamas looted trucks and resold aid meant to be distributed free of charge.- Aid organisations sidelined -International aid groups say vast quantities of aid are stockpiled outside Gaza but require Israeli military clearance to enter.Inside Gaza, coordination with the military is also essential, as fighting and air strikes rage on.Damon accused Israel of preventing aid delivery by refusing to coordinate with NGOs to grant safe passage through combat zones.”Getting that coordination approved is incredibly challenging,” she told AFP.”Not to mention Israel’s lack of willingness to provide humanitarian organisations with a safe route to be able to ensure a secure pickup.”The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Wednesday it had “thousands of trucks in neighbouring countries waiting to enter Gaza –- banned by Israeli authorities from entering since March”.- ‘Encountered death’ for flour -Israel screens all goods entering Gaza, but COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, denies limiting the number of humanitarian trucks.On Thursday it said “around 70 food trucks were unloaded at aid crossings, and over 150 were collected by the UN and international organisations from the Gazan side”.But more than 800 trucks remained uncollected, and Israel’s military posted footage online of hundreds of trucks loaded with food aid “sitting idle inside Gaza”.UN agencies and international NGOs reject Israeli claims that they lack the capacity to distribute food.They note that aid was distributed effectively in the past, including during the last ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that ended in March.In Khan Yunis, in Gaza’s south, resident Yousef Abu Shehla said this week he had “encountered death” to get his hands on a bag of flour for his family.”We shall feed our children even if we die,” he told AFP.

Holiday camp organisers vowed to file a legal complaint against Spanish airline Vueling over the expulsion of French Jewish teenagers from a Paris-bound flight, a lawyer said Thursday.The airline said it had asked the children to leave the plane in the Spanish city of Valencia due to their “disruptive behaviour”, but parents condemned what some of them described as an “antisemitic act”.”We are going to file a complaint for physical and psychological violence, as well as discrimination on the basis of religion,” camp organiser Club Kineret’s lawyer Julie Jacob said, adding that those involved were mostly under 15 years old.In a statement, Vueling said some passengers “engaged in highly disruptive behaviour and adopted a very confrontational attitude, putting at risk the safe conduct” of the flight to Paris-Orly airport.”We categorically deny any suggestion that our crew’s decision related to the religion of the passengers involved. This decision was taken solely to ensure the safety of all passengers,” it said.”This group mishandled emergency equipment and actively disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration, repeatedly ignoring instructions from cabin crew,” Vueling added.The holiday camp association Kineret, however, said it “formally and categorically” denied Vueling’s version of events.The crew requested the intervention of the Civil Guard police force, which “decided to disembark the group to prioritise the safety of the rest of the passengers”, Vueling said.”Once at the terminal, the group’s behaviour continued to be aggressive. Some individuals displayed a violent attitude,” leading to the arrest of one person, Vueling said.- Passenger arrested -One of the minors on the flight, 17-year-old Samson, told AFP by telephone that the group had taken their seats on the plane calmly.”One of my friends shouted a word in Hebrew because he was still a bit in holiday-camp mood,” he said, adding: “Perhaps he said it too loudly.”Flight staff then warned that they would alert police if it happened again, he said. “We immediately stopped making noise,” Samson said.The Civil Guard said it had removed 44 minors and eight adults from the plane, saying the arrested person “refused to get off the plane and obey the officers” but was later released.”The officers were not aware of the religion of the disembarked people at any point during the operation,” the Civil Guard said in a statement.Parents said the teenagers were forced off the plane after one of them had sung a song in Hebrew.A mother whose 17-year-old son was on the flight told AFP on condition of anonymity that the group was returning home from a two-week summer camp.She said she “could not see what could have justified” the incident, which affected children as young as 12 and 13. “They were disembarked like dogs,” she said.Karine Lamy, the mother of one of the children, told Israeli television channel i24NEWS that it was “an antisemitic act against young children who did nothing”.Kineret said the police action was brutal and unjustified “and clearly marked by bias”.burs-ah-imm-jh/rlp

Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised Britain’s “unique bonds” with India as he and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi formally signed a recently announced UK-India trade deal during talks on Thursday.Starmer hailed the agreement as a “landmark moment” for both countries as he hosted India’s leader at his Chequers country estate, northwest of London.”This is not …

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Israel said on Thursday it had recalled its negotiators from Gaza ceasefire talks with Hamas, as international pressure mounted for a breakthrough to end nearly two years of devastating war.Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas delegations in Qatar for more than two weeks, but the indirect talks have so far failed to yield an elusive truce.International concern is growing over the plight of the more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where the fighting has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and warnings that “mass starvation” was spreading.The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that after Hamas had submitted its response to mediators on the latest ceasefire proposal, the Israeli negotiators were being brought back for consultations.”We appreciate the efforts of mediators Qatar and Egypt and the efforts of (US special) envoy (Steve) Witkoff to bring about a breakthrough,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office.A Palestinian source familiar with the talks told AFP earlier that Hamas’s response included proposed amendments to clauses on the entry of aid, maps of areas from which the Israeli army should withdraw, and guarantees on securing a permanent end to the war.The White House said on Wednesday that US envoy Witkoff was meeting “key leaders” from the region to discuss the ceasefire proposal.Witkoff was reportedly on the Italian island of Sardinia on Thursday, Israeli media said.- Key demands -Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces had killed at least 40 people since dawn on Thursday, including six waiting for aid.In Khan Yunis, in the south, Umm al-Abd Nassar urged Hamas to secure a truce after her son was killed in an air strike on a camp for the displaced.”They need to do something. Enough with this destruction and people dying,” she told AFP.Israel’s military said Hamas militants targeted a food distribution site in the south of the territory on Wednesday.The militants, though, claimed they had shelled “an enemy command and control site”.Through 21 months of fighting, both sides have clung to long-held positions, preventing two short-lived truces from being converted into a lasting ceasefire.The talks in Doha began on July 6 to try to reach an agreement on a truce that would also see the release of Israeli hostages.Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.But the talks have dragged on without a breakthrough, with each side blaming the other for refusing to budge on their key demands.For Israel, dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities is non-negotiable, while Hamas demands firm guarantees on a lasting truce, a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and the free flow of aid into Gaza.- ‘Blockade’ -Israel has rejected accusations that it is responsible for Gaza’s deepening hunger crisis, which the World Health Organization has called “man-made” and France blamed on an Israeli “blockade”.Instead, it accuses Hamas of preventing supplies from being distributed and looting aid for themselves or to sell at inflated prices as well as shooting at people seeking handouts.International news organisations, including AFP, urged Israel on Thursday to allow journalists in and out of Gaza, with concern that a lack of food is putting their lives at risk.Israel maintains that it is allowing aid into the Palestinian territory but that international relief agencies were failing to pick it up for distribution.COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said on Thursday that around 70 food trucks had been unloaded at aid crossings the previous day.”Over 150 were collected by the UN and international organisations from the Gazan side, but over 800 still await pick up,” it said in a post on X.Aid agencies have said permissions from Israel are still limited, and coordination to safely move trucks to where they are needed is a major challenge in an active war zone.Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,587 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Several EU countries are pushing Brussels to move forward with concrete actions against Israel over the war in Gaza for failing to improve the dire humanitarian situation, diplomats said Thursday.The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas earlier this month announced a deal with Israel to allow more aid into Gaza as warnings mount over mass-starvation in the war-ravaged territory. The bloc’s diplomatic service on Wednesday gave a first briefing to ambassadors from the EU’s 27 nations on Israel’s efforts to improve access to Gaza.”Israel has made some efforts on the basis of the agreed parameters, the number of trucks entering Gaza has increased, additional crossing points and routes have opened, and fuel supplies have increased,” said EU spokesman Anouar El Anouni. “But the situation remains dire, clearly, a lot, a lot still needs to be done.”But several diplomats said that a group of countries had demanded the EU move ahead with a list of options to punish Israel over Gaza to keep up pressure.”A significant number of member states said the situation is intolerable,” an EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.An EU source said that, under the aid deal, Israel was supposed to let at least 160 trucks into Gaza daily, a figure far above current levels.- Pushing for tougher line -Kallas this month laid out a raft of steps that could be taken against Israel after it was found to have breached a cooperation agreement with the bloc on human rights grounds.The measures range from suspending the entire accord or curbing trade ties to sanctioning Israeli ministers, imposing an arms embargo and halting visa-free travel.Some of the options could be initiated by the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, or the bloc’s diplomatic arm.So far, however, neither have been willing to push ahead with any of the moves amid divisions on how to tackle Israel.Diplomats said Brussels had agreed to report back next week on any potential steps that could be taken.The internal push came as dozens of former EU ambassadors also demanded the bloc take firmer action against Israel in an open letter.The 27-nation EU has struggled for a unified line over the war in Gaza as it is split between countries that strongly back Israel and those favouring the Palestinians. International criticism of Israel is growing over the plight of the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 100 aid and rights groups have warned that “mass starvation” is spreading.