23/07/2025

WEDNESDAY | JULY 23, 2025

9

UK, France and 23 other nations condemn Israel

LONDON: A group of 25 Western countries including Britain, France, and Canada said on Monday Israel must immediately end its war in Gaza and criticised what they called the “inhumane killing” of Palestinians, including hundreds near food distribution sites. The countries in a joint statement condemned what they called the “drip feeding of aid” to Palestinians in Gaza and said it was “horrifying” that more than 800 civilians had been killed while seeking aid. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the UN. “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the countries’ foreign ministers said in a joint statement. “The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths.”

into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday. Much of Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland during more than 21 months of the war that began when gunmen stormed into Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, with the latest deaths reported on Monday as Israel began a new incursion in central Gaza. – Reuters

o Statement disconnected from reality, says Tel Aviv

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the statement was “disconnected from reality” and it would send the wrong message to Hamas. “The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise its role and responsibility,” the Israeli statement said. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar later said he spoke with his British counterpart David Lammy on

The call by about 20 European countries, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for an end to the war in Gaza and the delivery of aid comes from many countries which are allied with Israel and its most important backer, the United States. Among those calling for an end to the war are four out of five countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the US.

Monday on regional issues, including Gaza. He blamed Hamas “for the suffering of the population and the continuation of the war”. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the statement “disgusting” and said blaming Israel was “irrational” because Hamas rejects every proposal to end the war. The plea from the other Western nations came as Israeli tanks pushed

A combination picture shows a missile landing during an Israeli strike on a residential building, and smoke and flames rising from the building after the strike in Gaza City on Monday. – REUTERSPIC

WHO facilities attacked, male staff stripped and interrogated

Court rejects Russia vote meddling case

DEIR EL-BALAH: The World Health Organisation said on Monday its facilities in Gaza had come under Israeli attack, echoing calls from Western countries for an immediate ceasefire as Israel expanded military operations to the central city of Deir al-Balah. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Israeli military had entered the UN agency’s staff residence, forced women and children to evacuate on foot, and handcuffed, stripped and interrogated male staff at gunpoint. Tedros, who also condemned an attack on the WHO’s main warehouse in Deir al-Balah, echoed that call: “A ceasefire is not just necessary, it is overdue,” he said on X. Deir al-Balah came under intense shelling on Monday, after Israel’s military the day before had ordered

interview, or document a fact, I don’t know if I’ll come back alive,” said Ahlam, who noted that lack of food and water is the biggest problem. Expressing concern over their worsening situation, the union said their courage, which they devoted for many months to informing the world, “will not help them survive”. “We risk learning of their deaths at any moment, and this is unbearable,” the statement added. Since March 2, Israel has enforced a blockade on Gaza, barring entry of food, medicine, and humanitarian aid. Aid agencies have repeatedly warned of a man-made famine, with no sign of easing. – Bernama and his family had fled northwards from their tent south of Deir al-Balah at dawn following a night of intense shelling. “There is no safe place anywhere in the Gaza Strip,” he said. “I don’t know where we can go.” Mai Elawawda, communications officer in Gaza for the UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said the situation was “extremely critical”, describing shelling “all around our office”. The families of hostages held in Gaza said they were “shocked and alarmed” by reports of evacuation orders for parts of Deir al-Balah. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded political and military authorities “clearly explain why the offensive in the Deir al-Balah area does not put the hostages at serious risk”. – AFP

the union’s statement, despite receiving a monthly salary, AFP journalists in Gaza have nothing to buy or must pay exorbitant prices. The agency no longer has the resources to own a vehicle, as there is far too little fuel to allow its journalists to travel for their reports. They noted that travelling by car is tantamount to running the risk of being a target for the Israeli air force. Also mentioning Ahlam, another AFP journalist, the union said she wants to “bear witness” for as long as possible. “Every time I leave the tent to cover an event, conduct an breakdown humanitarian conditions”, noting “the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition”. In Deir al-Balah, AFP images showed plumes of dark smoke billowing into the sky. The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, said it had “received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir al-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”. Since the start of the war, nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once by repeated Israeli evacuation orders. According to OCHA, the latest order means that 87.8% of the territory is now under evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones. Hamdi Abu Mughseeb, 50, said he of

residents to leave, warning of imminent action in an area where it had not previously operated. Between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area when the evacuation order was issued, according to initial estimates from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA. Deir al-Balah resident Abdullah Abu Saleem, 48, told AFP on Monday that“during the night, we heard huge and powerful explosions shaking the area as if it were an earthquake”. He said this was “due to artillery shelling in the south-central part of Deir al-Balah and the southeastern area”. “We are extremely worried and fearful that the army is planning a ground operation,” he said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned through his spokesman the “accelerating

STRASBOURG: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) yesterday rejected a case brought by three MPs who had accused the British government of failing to fight Russian electoral interference. The ruling follows a claim lodged by a cross-party group of three MPs after the High Court in London rejected the case in 2021. The trio – Ben Bradshaw (Labour), Caroline Lucas (Green Party) and Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party) – claim the failure of the government to investigate “credible allegations” of interference in the electoral system had breached its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights that protects the right to free and fair elections. In its ruling, the ECHR said it sided with the British government that had argued that applicants could not be considered “victims” of any alleged government law violation. They had failed to produce evidence that they had been affected by any state failings, or that “the very essence” of the electoral process had been impaired. “States should not remain passive when faced with evidence that their democratic processes are under threat,” the court conceded. But they also had to be accorded “a wide margin of appreciation” on how to deal with such threats, and the UK’s response “did not fall outside the wide margin of appreciation afforded to it in this area”, the court said. – AFP

AFP journalists in Gaza at risk of starvation LONDON: The AFP journalists’ association on Monday warned that journalists working with the news agency in the Gaza Strip are facing extreme food shortages and risk starving amid the Israeli blockade of aid delivery and strikes. Issuing a stark warning, the SDJ, the French news agency’s a post on X, sharing the statement. In the statement, the SDJ noted that AFP has been working with a freelance reporter, three According to

photographers and six freelance video journalists in the Gaza Strip. Naming one of them, Bashar Taleb, who is working for the agency as a photographer, the union shared his social media post, showing grave conditions in the besieged enclave. “I don’t have the power to cover media anymore. My body is lean and I no longer have the ability to walk,” Taleb, 30, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. He also said that his older brother collapsed on Sunday.

journalists’association, said that they refuse to let their staff watch them die. “Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us can recall seeing a colleague die of hunger,” the association said in