UK, France and Germany call for immediate end to ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza and demand Israel lifts restrictions on aid
The UK, France and Germany have issued a statement saying the Gaza “humanitarian catastrophe must end now” They have called on Israel to “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid”.
“The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,” a joint statement reads. “Withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.”
More to follow …
Key events
Summary
Here is a recap of today’s main developments:
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The UK, France and Germany have issued a statement saying the Gaza “humanitarian catastrophe must end now”. They have called on Israel to “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid”. The joint statement also calls on all parties to bring about an immediate ceasefire, for an unconditional release of all hostages and the disarmament of Hamas.
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Gaza is on the brink of running out of the specialised therapeutic food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children, United Nations and humanitarian agencies say. Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for Unicef in Amman, Jordan, told Reuters supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a crucial treatment, would be depleted by mid-August if nothing changed.
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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday that a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel’s “policy of starvation”. MSF said that “rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have tripled in the last two weeks alone”, AFP reports.
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Qatar and Egypt, in partnership with the US, have affirmed their commitment to continue efforts to reach a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza, according to a joint statement reported by Reuters. Qatar’s foreign ministry also referred to Thursday’s pause on negotiations to hold consultations as a “natural matter” given the complexity of the talks. Both countries said there had been some progress in the latest round of talks.
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Israeli army radio, citing a military official, reported that Israel would allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza starting on Friday, Reuters reports.
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UN secretary general António Guterres on Friday criticised the international community for turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians starving in the Gaza Strip, calling it a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience.”
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The death toll from Israeli military operations in Gaza has reached 59,676, according to the latest update from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. In the past 24 hours alone, 89 people were killed and 467 were injured, the ministry said in its daily report.
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Ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel are expected to resume next week, AFP reports. Hamas official, Bassem Naim said on Friday that he was told an Israeli delegation would depart for consultations early next week.
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Israel, with its US allies, is now considering alternative options to bring its hostages home, end Hamas’ rule in Gaza, and secure lasting peace for Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, Reuters reports.
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Donald Trump has said Hamas “did not want to make a deal” on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza. Referring to Hamas leaders, Trump said: “I think they will be hunted down”.
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A Hamas official on Friday accused US envoy Steve Witkoff of distorting reality after he announced Washington’s withdrawal from Gaza truce talks and accused the group of blocking a deal. Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim said: “The negative statements of the US envoy Witkoff run completely counter to the context in which the last negotiations were held, and he is perfectly aware of this, but they come to serve the Israeli position.”
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Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday his country cannot accept “carnage and famine” in Gaza, criticising Israel but stating that Italy was not ready to recognise the state of Palestine. He added that the recognition of a Palestinian state must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
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Israeli forces have arrested more than 200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the past three months, according to a statement from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
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France’s plan to formally recognise a Palestinian state runs counter to the stance held by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Paris said Friday. “Hamas has always ruled out a two-state solution. By recognising Palestine, France goes against that terrorist organisation,” foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.
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Donald Trump on Friday dismissed French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September. “What he says doesn’t matter,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “He’s a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross has called for “urgent collective action by states” to end the suffering in Gaza.
As ceasefire negotiations have stalled, the organisation’s president Mirjana Spoljaric released a strongly worded statement, condemning “political hesitation”. She called for the resumption of “rapid, unimpeded and impartial” aid deliveries, the unconditional release of all remaining hostages and allowing the ICRC to resume visits to Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention.
The statement adds:
Every minute without a ceasefire risks civilian lives. The level of suffering inflicted on civilians because of warfare conducted indiscriminately and the extreme deprivation of the essentials for survival is abhorrent.
People are being relentlessly killed in hostilities and while attempting to get food. Children are dying because they do not have enough to eat. Families are being forced to flee again and again in search of safety that does not exist. The ICRC has more than 350 staff on the ground in Gaza, many of whom are also struggling to find enough food and clean water.
This tragedy must end now – immediately and decisively. Every political hesitation, every attempt at justification of the horrors being committed under international watch will forever be judged as a collective failure to preserve humanity in war.
Germany ‘prepared to increase pressure’ on Israel, but did not give details
Germany, which joined the UK and France in calling on Israel to immediately lift aid blocks in Gaza, has traditionally been a particularly staunch ally of Israel in Europe.
But Berlin, too, has sharpened its tone recently, the Associated Press reports, describing the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza as unacceptable and pushing for greater humanitarian aid. But it still appears to favour trying to influence Israeli officials by direct contact.
The German government said in a statement on Friday that it is in a “constant exchange” with the Israeli government and other partners on issues that include a ceasefire in Gaza and the need to drastically improve humanitarian aid. It said it is “prepared to increase the pressure” if there is no progress, but didn’t elaborate on how.
Israeli officials have said they believe Hamas is still interested in a ceasefire deal but accused the militant group of “trying to squeeze every possible advantage, provoking and appeasing all the extremist factions within Gaza”, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The publication quoted an official as saying that Hamas demands to release prisoners in exchange for hostages who have died was “outlandish”.
The report comes as negotiations were effectively stalled when the US and Israel recalled their negotiators from Doha on Thursday.
Julian Borger is a senior international correspondent who has reported for the Guardian in the US, the Middle East, eastern Europe and the Balkans. He has written this analysis on growing pressure on the UK’s Keir Starmer to pick a side now Macron has announced France will recognise Palestine as a state:
Emmanuel Macron’s declaration, announced in typically dramatic fashion on social media late on Thursday night, draws a bright line between the paths followed by the US and France over the Gaza war, and significantly raises the pressure on the UK, Germany and other G7 powers to pick a side.
Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz held what Starmer described as an “emergency call” on Friday, to coordinate positions. It led to a joint call for Israel to lift its food blockade immediately, an immediate ceasefire and release of hostages held by Hamas. But there was no apparent shift in Merz and Starmer’s position on recognition.
Merz’s government said it had “no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term”.
Starmer stuck to his position that statehood would only come as part of a sequence of coordinated steps towards peace.
“Recognition of a Palestinian state has to be one of those steps. I am unequivocal about that,” the prime minister said. “But it must be part of a wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
UK prime minister says recognising Palestinian statehood should be part of ‘pathway’ to peace
British prime minister Keir Starmer said recognising Palestinian statehood should be part of a “pathway” to peace amid mounting pressure on the UK to follow France.
In a statement released after he and the leaders of France and Germany restated their calls for a ceasefire, Starmer said:
The appalling scenes in Gaza are unrelenting.
The continued captivity of hostages, the starvation and denial of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, the increasing violence from extremist settler groups, and Israel’s disproportionate military escalation in Gaza are all indefensible.
Alongside our closest allies, I am working on a pathway to peace in the region, focused on the practical solutions that will make a real difference to the lives of those that are suffering in this war.
That pathway will set out the concrete steps needed to turn the ceasefire so desperately needed, into a lasting peace.
Recognition of a Palestinian state has to be one of those steps. I am unequivocal about that.
But it must be part of a wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis.
This is the way to ensure it is a tool of maximum utility to improve the lives of those who are suffering – which of course, will always be our ultimate goal.
Qatar and Egypt, in partnership with the US, have affirmed their commitment to continue efforts to reach a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza, according to a joint statement reported by Reuters.
Qatar’s foreign ministry also referred to Thursday’s pause on negotiations to hold consultations as a “natural matter” given the complexity of the talks. Both countries said there had been some progress in the latest round of talks.
The joint statement also calls on all parties “to bring an end to the conflict by reaching an immediate ceasefire” and urges Hamas to agree the “unconditional release of all hostages”.
“The most basic needs of the civilian population, including access to water and food, must be met without any further delay,” the statement continues.
It adds: “The disarmament of Hamas is imperative, and Hamas must have no role in the future of Gaza.”
“Threats of annexation, settlements and acts of settler violence against Palestinians undermine the prospects for a negotiated two-state solution,” the statement continues.
UK, France and Germany call for immediate end to ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza and demand Israel lifts restrictions on aid
The UK, France and Germany have issued a statement saying the Gaza “humanitarian catastrophe must end now” They have called on Israel to “immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid”.
“The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,” a joint statement reads. “Withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.”
More to follow …
Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine. He is the former Jerusalem correspondent of the Guardian and has written this analysis on Israel and starvation in Gaza.
Israel is pursuing an extensive PR effort to remove itself from blame for the starvation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is responsible.
As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel’s culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel’s fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid.
The Israeli effort has continued even as one of its own government ministers, the far-right heritage minister, Amichai Eliyahu, appeared to describe an unapologetic policy of starvation, genocide and ethnic cleansing that Israel has denied and said is not official policy.
Amid evidence of a growing number of deaths from starvation in Gaza, including many child deaths, and shocking images and accounts of malnutrition, Israel has tried to deflect blame for what has been described by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) as “man-made mass starvation”.
That view was endorsed in a joint statement this week by 28 countries – including the UK – which explicitly blamed Israel. “The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the statement said. “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazan’s of human dignity.
“We condemn the drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.”
You can read the full piece here.
A third of people in Gaza ‘not eating for day’ amid ‘astonishing desperation’, UN ‘s World Food Programme says
Almost a third of people in Gaza are “not eating for days”, the United Nations food aid agency, the World Food Programme, has told the AFP news agency, saying the crisis has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation”.
“Nearly one person in three is not eating for days. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment,” the WFP said. It has previously warned of a “critical risk of famine” in Gaza.
It said that 470,000 people are expected to face “catastrophic hunger” – the most critical category under the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase classification – between May and September this year.
“Food aid is the only way for people to access any food as food prices are through the roof,” the WFP said. “People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance.”
US forces killed an Islamic State group leader in a raid in Syria’s Aleppo province on Friday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
The raid resulted “in the death of senior ISIS leader, Dhiya Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, and his two adult ISIS-affiliated sons,” CENTCOM said in a statement, using an acronym for the jihadist group.
“These ISIS individuals posed a threat to US and Coalition forces, as well as the new Syrian government,” it said, adding that three women and three children were at the location that was raided and were unharmed in the operation, AFP reports.
The Islamic State group rose out of the chaos of the Syrian civil war to seize swathes of territory there and in neighbouring Iraq over a decade ago.
It has since suffered major defeats in both countries, but the United States still periodically targets the jihadist group’s remnants with raids or strikes to prevent it from resurging.
France’s highest court ruled on Friday that an arrest warrant for former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was invalid as it was issued when he was still in office, but said a new warrant can now be issued as he is no longer a sitting head of state, Reuters reports.
French investigating magistrates had issued the warrant in November 2023 following a French investigation into chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian city of Douma and Eastern Ghouta district in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people.
Then-President Assad’s government denied using chemical weapons during the country’s civil war that broke out in 2011. Assad was toppled in December last year by Islamist rebels whose leader is now the interim president.
The Court of Cassation’s decision overturns one made by the Paris Court of Appeal, which had ruled last year that the warrant was valid. Prosecutors, who would need to ask police to carry out the warrant, had challenged its validity.
The Court of Cassation said in a statement:
“The arrest warrant issued at a time when this person was the head of state of Syria is therefore invalid … However, an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity can now be issued since this person no longer holds the position of Head of State.”
UN chief criticises international community’s ‘lack of compassion’ for Palestinians in Gaza
UN secretary general António Guterres on Friday criticised the international community for turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians starving in the Gaza Strip, calling it a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience”, AFP reports.
“I cannot explain the level of indifference and inaction we see by too many in the international community – the lack of compassion, the lack of truth, the lack of humanity,” Guterres said in a speech via videolink to Amnesty International’s global assembly.
Hamas says US accusations over Gaza deal failure ‘run counter’ to talks
A Hamas official on Friday accused US envoy Steve Witkoff of distorting reality after he announced Washington’s withdrawal from Gaza truce talks and accused the group of blocking a deal.
“The negative statements of the US envoy Witkoff run completely counter to the context in which the last negotiations were held, and he is perfectly aware of this, but they come to serve the Israeli position,” said Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim in an interview with AFP.