Category: 2. World

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Beijing will roll out the red carpet for more than two dozen world leaders at two major, defense-related events in the coming week. The guest lists, including notable omissions, are a window into China’s ambitions, alliances and continued attempts to expand its influence.

The two events are the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group established by China and Russia in 2001 with a focus on security in Central Asia and the wider region, and a massive military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, where China emerged victorious over its neighbor Japan.

High-profile guests of Chinese President Xi Jinping will include the Russian and North Korean leaders, as well as heads of state and government from most Southeast Asian and Central Asian nations.

But the guest lists for the SCO forum and the military parade don’t fully overlap, reflecting Beijing’s interests, loyalties and limitations among its neighbors and beyond.

World leaders will start pouring in for the SCO summit, to be held Sunday and Monday in the port city of Tianjin, just southeast of Beijing. Then on Wednesday, there will be a massive military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.

The parade is set to showcase some of China’s most advanced homegrown weapons, including more than 100 aircraft, and numerous tanks and missiles.

The guest list for the SCO summit includes leaders of the organization’s 10 member states, along with representatives from almost two dozen other countries, some of which may join the group at a later date.

SCO was established by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and later expanded to include members such as India, Iran, Pakistan and Belarus. Afghanistan and Mongolia are observer states, and 14 other countries, mostly from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, serve as “dialogue partners.” The country hosting the annual summit rotates every year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi top the list of dignitaries attending the summit. Also attending are Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly, whose countries are “dialogue partners” within SCO.

Some countries that are not SCO members will also be represented, mostly from Southeast Asia. These include Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam, reflecting China’s desire to shore up its ties within the region.

Most of the high-level guests at the SCO forum and the military parade will overlap, but there will be some notable departures — and additions.

The leaders of India, Egypt and Turkey will leave Beijing before the military show. Egypt will be represented by a lower-level official. Like most Western countries and their allies, India and Turkey generally refrain from posing alongside China’s top leaders at military parades, which take place every few years.

Instead, joining Xi and Putin to observe Chinese troops marching in lockstep on Chang’an Avenue will be North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who will not have attended the earlier SCO summit. This will be Kim’s first meeting with Xi in more than six years, and his first occasion to come together with a group of world leaders since the reclusive North Korean leader took office, in late 2011.

Xi, Putin and Kim potentially seated together in Tiananmen Square will make for a defiant show of unity at a time when the West is increasingly frustrated over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing, though on paper neutral in the conflict, has not condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is accused of selling weapon components to Russia. Meanwhile, North Korea has sent troops to aid the Russians in the war.

Additionally, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who is the country’s acting president in the wake of a military coup in 2021, will also attend the military parade.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, as well as the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, will also be there.

The only European heads of state attending the parade but not the SCO summit will be the Russia-friendly Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, the Romans had no clue that such a thing could ever happen. Therefore, they had no means to prevent the disaster that killed the flourishing city’s residents and covered it with volcanic debris. A millennium later, Pompeii, frozen in time, is a stark reminder of the incredible power of nature and the cost of ignoring it.

In today’s era, technological advancements have significantly enhanced the ability to predict natural hazards. This is then used to disseminate warnings, evacuations and to implement safety protocols. As atmospheric events are far more accurate and specific than their geological counterparts, countless lives have been saved by prediction and prevention.

Experts now categorise disasters as the outcome of ignored vulnerabilities. They are also a crucible for predicting and preventing future disasters. What mechanisms have we put in place after the devastating floods of 2022 or the ones that consistently pummel us from Khyber to Makran each year?

It is only through proactive risk assessment, clear communication, defined roles, and mitigation that nations have achieved significant progress in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The UN’s Sendai Framework for DRR emphasises that political will is crucial for this. Lack of it has been cited as DRR’s main inhibitor.

DRR’s first step, which has eluded us so far, is disaster vulnerability assessment. It identifies the vulnerabilities of a community and its infrastructure against natural disasters or human-induced threats.

The latter’s example includes subsidence, dilapidated buildings, deforestation, unregulated urbanisation and encroached-upon riverbanks and waterways. We cannot simply wish away these vulnerabilities or the vagaries of climate change.

Repetitive disasters are a fallout of an absent DRR. As a result, the Environmental Performance Index 2024 has us placed ignominiously at the 179th position among 180 countries.

Disaster management is not about acting as a weather alert messenger. An alert is intended to give us a head start in operationalising a comprehensive on-the-ground plan to prevent a disaster. This plain logic has no takers among our policymakers.

Recently, two individuals proved how a proactive approach can avert tragedies. In Swat, Saeed Ahmad, principal of a local school, saved the lives of 900 students by having the school evacuated in 15 minutes before torrents of water demolished it. Saeed Ahmad sensed that, due to consistent rain, the stream was going to burst its banks. A principal for 12 years, he recalled that the school had been destroyed in the summer vacations of 1995 due to floods and this led to his having the school evacuated.

At almost the same time, a GLOF in Ghizer Valley could have caused devastation. Wasiyat Khan, herding his sheep near the glacier, used his mobile phone to alert the residents of Tildas Village about the impending flood. His timely warning averted a human tragedy as the villagers moved to safer locations. The flood devastated 80 per cent of the village. Two disasters were averted by two astute individuals with no institutional support but a sense of responsibility. One can well imagine the profound impact on DRR if the government chooses to be proactive.

In 1970, Cyclone Bhola, with winds of 185 km/h, struck East Pakistan, resulting in the deaths of 500,000 people. This tragedy fomented further alienation that would lead to the partition of Pakistan. In 2020, super-cyclone Amphan hit Bangladesh with 190 km/h winds and 17ft high storm-water surges. It caused 26 fatalities. Thousands of lives were saved through in-place warning and safety systems.

In 1970, East Pakistan had just 44 cyclone shelters; today, Bangladesh has 14,000 with the capacity to accommodate five million people. Systems are in place to provide meals and medical care to these people. Hygienic toilets have been built above expected flood levels along with flood-resistant tubewells. $1 spent on preventive measures sees Bangladesh avoiding $123 in damages.

This massive effort is realised by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief. Among other steps, it has raised a trained force of 76,000 volunteers, half of them women. Seeking guidance from Bangladesh, 54 years our junior, could be sobering and extremely helpful. Countries like Bangladesh, which have maximised DRR, treat natural hazards as a civil defence issue. This only happens where human life is not a mere statistic. Bizarrely, our budgetary allocation for disaster preparedness at 33.16 billion rupees has been slashed by 30 per cent as compared to last year’s allocation.

Nevertheless, a $50 million World Bank-funded project shall see the installation of 300 new automated weather stations. Weather observatories are only one component of what makes a comprehensive and effective DRR system. Without it, they remain propaganda tools intended to demonstrate the government’s intent at DRR.

A new single-bid 23.83-billion-rupee Indus Telemetry Project at 27 water discharge points of the Indus River has also been initiated. In 2000, with Wapda at the helm, the late General Musharraf initiated our first telemetry system. It was abandoned after years of malfunction. This time around, Wapda is the executing agency again and the consultants remain unchanged. Can a different outcome be expected?

Cloudburst is the new nature-blaming euphemism that is very much in vogue – even though apathy, a purely human trait, is at fault. Year after year, the country remains unprepared, defenceless, and feebly reactive against devastating deluges and the aftermath of disease outbreaks.

There is a consensus among environmental geographers that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. The vulnerability or preparedness is merely a manifestation of the DRR calculus in place. Absence of an effective and ever-evolving one and no one accountable whatsoever for the loss of lives, means dismissing the inevitable in future. What else can one call it but disasters by design?

The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at: miradnanaziz@gmail.com

Nearly half of humanitarian aid missions to Gaza are being blocked or impeded, the United Nations has confirmed. As shocking as this may sound to some, for many it is merely another grim confirmation of what has long been evident: humanity and the rule of law have been reduced to hollow slogans when it comes to Palestine.

Israel has been permitted to carry out a genocide for nearly two years with complete impunity. Each new report, each fresh tally of lives lost, each obstruction of aid, only deepens the collective shame. It is no longer possible for those who have supported, funded, or politically shielded Israel to claim in the future that they were unaware, or that some legal loophole absolves them of complicity. The record is being written in real time, and it leaves no room for convenient forgetfulness.

There is little appetite among the powerful to intervene meaningfully. The destruction, it seems, will be allowed to run its course until it reaches its maximum human and material toll. That is the bleak reality the world is complicit in tolerating. But history is merciless, and when justice is sought, as it inevitably will be, even if delayed, the list of those held accountable will be long. It will not stop at politicians or generals. Every facilitator, every profiteer, every apologist who enabled this campaign will be named for what they are: complicit in crimes against humanity.

The world may avert its eyes today, but there will be no turning back from this moment. The ledger is filling, and the day of reckoning, however distant, will demand answers that no carefully crafted press release or legal argument will ever be able to provide.

IN the first six months of his presidency, American President Donald Trump has transformed the rules of international relations in ways that are surprising for an isolationist president whose main concern is his ultra-nationalist voter base. Wielding carrots and sticks, he has used the threat of international tariffs and the weaponisation of trade to come down hard on everyone he believes is taking advantage of the US.

The list of culprits is long. Nearly everyone, it appears, is someone the current US president believes e guilty of taking from America and not giving back. The same president has even more disdain for expenditures such as development aid or cultural diplomacy, both of which have been a mainstay of US diplomacy in the past several decades. It is important to remember that one of the first agencies of the US government to be shuttered was USAID. Very soon after Trump entered the White House, the minions of the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, led by the infamous (and now absent) Elon Musk, barged into USAID offices and closed access to all employees. They even took down the sign bearing the agency’s name.

Nothing was to be handed out for free anymore; nobody in other countries was to be a priority. This was the anthem sung in the wake of USAID’s demise. It did not matter how many around the world criticised America, or how many lives were lost as the distribution of medications and vaccines to remote corners diminished. The idea that the ‘goodwill’ of other people was a foreign policy asset no longer held sway. It was the end of soft power.

In the months since, the same strain has been dominant in the massive restructuring of foreign policy now underway in the US. America has withdrawn from the WHO and is unsupportive of the UN and its many agencies. This September, when world leaders troop to New York to make speeches and participate in conversations with each other, a majority of the Trump administration’s most important people will be elsewhere. In all the many negotiations that President Trump has been feverishly undertaking in these past six months, the UN or any mention of it is absent. It is he alone who negotiated peace bet­w­een India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia and it is he alone who will (he believes) broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.

The recent meeting with European leaders is a case in point. Here again, there was, apparently, no mention of the UN as leaders of the most powerful European countries from Italy to Germany sat before Trump like schoolchildren. The placement of the leaders vis-à-vis Trump and the photo-op that followed seemed to be orchestrated by the Trump administration to give exactly that impression. In doing this, Trump was again underscoring the point that the US and its president were the boss.

To some extent, this proved true. In the wake of his repeated allegation that European countries were freeloading off the US, the countries have increased their military spending. Notably, most of this is to buy defence equipment from none other than the US. The tariffs have worked too — many European countries have worked out trade deals with the US and provided the hegemon the fealty it demands. The US has been acting this way with the rest of the world since long before Trump. It is now Europe’s turn to feel the heat.

One reason soft power may have died is that the biggest bet that the US had placed on its use failed.

One reason soft power may have died is that the biggest bet that the US had placed on its use failed. For decades, America thought that cultural diplomacy and soft power initiatives would transform China and force it to be a more open and democratic country. That did not happen. China remains opaque, and censors the internet. The Americans have paid attention. If China can expand its power and prowess without soft power, then the US can too. The result: a new foreign policy outlook that is uninterested in democratic advancement, liberalism or the promotion of Western values in general.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in US policy towards India. For decades, India’s status as a large democracy was the basis of bilateral cooperation between the two countries; something that allowed it to act as a high-tech emerging hub or a poor developing nation in need of subsidies — whatever suited its interests at a particular point.

With the lagging interest in any of this and frustration over Indian citizens landing up in America and the penchant of many among them to abuse their skilled worker visas, America has turned away. Add to this Modi’s fatal faux pas in refusing to acknowledge that Trump is peacemaker and dealmaker in chief, and you have a recipe for disaster, especially in the form of a 50 per cent tariff that diminishes India’s presence in the global marketplace for textiles, jewels, leather goods, etc. India cannot choose to protect its own market and take advantage of US free trade at the same time. With Trump, India will have to learn that everything is quid pro quo.

Where US foreign policy goes, much of the Western world follows. In the days to come, expect European countries to follow, wrap up their international development projects, tighten their borders even further and look for trade deals rather than international assistance projects. Pakistan has managed to make some impressive gains in this year of brutal transactions; whether these will be as good for the poor as they may be for business remains to be seen.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

TASHKENT: In a new customs-free zone on the dusty Uzbek-Afghan border, Taliban representative Sayed Zaher Shah is pleased with his country’s rapidly growing trade links in the region.

“We have big plans for Central Asia,” Zaher Shah said in an interview at the complex — a symbol of cooperation between ex-Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Four years since the Taliban takeover, econo­mic cooperation is the ove­r­­­riding concern among the five Central Asian states, which all fear the spread of religious extremism.

“The policy of the Islamic Emi­rate (Taliban govt) is oriented towards an open economy. We have good relations with all our neighbours,” Zaher Shah said at the Airitom zone near Termez, in southern Uzbekistan.

Airitom, which opened last year, hosts around 300 businesses, restaurants, a library, conference halls, a Hilton hotel and a state-of-the-art medical centre.

There is no value-added tax or customs duties cha­rged on transactions in the zone.

To reach it, Afghans need to cross the “Frie­ndship Bridge”, which was used by Soviet troops retreating from Afgh­a­n­istan in 1989 as well as Afghan soldiers fleeing the lightning Taliban adv­ance in 2021.

Abdul Qayom Karimi, 73, said he was receiving medical treatment at Air­itom that he could not get in his Afghan home city of Mazar-i-Sharif, around 100 kilometres away.

“My nephew knew about this place and spoke highly of it so I wanted to come here for a general checkup. The doctors here are very advanced,” he said.

Gul Ahmad Amini, a man in his 60s, said he had come with his family after hearing about the centre.

“We are going to buy some things and then we want to go to the clinic to do a health check,” he said.

Inspiring quotes, high security

Sanjar Sodikov, an Uzbek official at Airitom, said over 1,000 Uzbeks and up to 2,000 Afghans visit the centre every day.

Afghan nationals can travel visa-free for up to 15 days to Uzbekistan.

Despite the openness, there are still security concerns.

Border guards carry out stringent checks at the entrance of Airitom and barbed wire tops the wall around it.

Police and plain clothes Uzbek security agents patrolled the area, on alert because of the visiting journalists.

The airconditioned sp­­ace offers relief from the heat and dust for Afghans.

Access to sea

Landlocked Central Asia is trying to regain its historic role as an important trading route.

Access to the sea, heading south through Afg­h­a­n­i­stan, is vital since the route north through Ru­­s­s­ia is hampered by sanctions.

Central Asian countries are launching major infrastructure projects, such as railways, to boost ties with the Taliban.

Afghanistan, which acc­ording to the UN is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, stands to gain gre­ater energy and food security.

Central Asia’s rapprochement with Kabul began long before Russia became the first country last month to recognise the Taliban government.

Kazakhstan took the Taliban off a list of terrorist organisations last year, Uzbekistan is boosting diplomatic ties and Kyrgyzstan has urged the West to recognise the Taliban.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s top diplomat has said Ankara has closed its ports and airspace to Israeli ships and planes.

“We have closed our ports to Israeli ships. We do not allow Turkish ships to go to Israeli ports…. We do not allow container ships carrying weapons and ammunition to Israel to enter our ports, nor do we allow their aircraft to enter our airspace,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told lawmakers in a televised address on Friday.

Asked for clarification about the minister’s remarks, a Turkish diplomatic source said its airspace was “closed to all aircraft carrying weapons (to Israel) and to Israel’s official flights”.

It was not immediately clear when the airspace restrictions were put in place.

Hamas calls on ‘free nations’ to sever all ties with Israel

Turkiye refused to let the Israeli president’s plane cross its airspace in November, forcing him to cancel a planned visit to the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan. And in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a visit to Baku after Ankara reportedly refused overflight rights.

Turkiye has been one of the harshest critics of Israel over its ongoing war on Gaza, accusing it of committing “genocide” in the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s biggest shipping firm ZIM said it had been informed that under new regulations passed by Ankara on August 22, “vessels that are either owned, managed or operated by an entity related to Israel will not be permitted to berth in Turkish ports”.

Fidan’s remarks were the first public acknowledgement of the ban.

Meanwhile, Palestinian group Hamas has urged governments across the world to ‘escalate punitive measures’. “We urge Turkiye, as well as Arab and Islamic countries and the free nations of the world, to escalate punitive measures against” Israel, Hamas said in a statement.

It called on countries to “sever all relations with it, and work to isolate it — so as to compel it to halt the genocide and destruction of Gaza”.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

WASHINGTON: For nearly three decades, US presidents — both Democrat and Republican — courted New Delhi as an emerging ally, politely overlooking disagreements for the sake of larger goals.

Donald Trump has abruptly changed that, slapping 50 per cent tariffs on many Indian products as he seeks to punish it for buying oil from Russia.

India was a Cold War partner of Moscow, but since the 1990s US leaders have hoped for a joint front with fellow democracy India in the face of the rise of China.

In striking timing, Indian PM Narendra Modi heads to China this weekend, the latest meeting bet­ween the world’s two most populous nations as they explore areas of common ground.

The Modi-Trump bromance has faltered after the latter started taking credit for the ceasefire with Pakistan

Trump has accused India of fueling Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro even called Ukraine “Modi’s war” in a Bloomberg TV interview.

Yet Trump has refrained from tougher US sanctions on Russia itself, saying he still hopes for a negotiated settlement.

“This is not just about tariffs, not just about Russia, not just about oil,” said Tanvi Madan of the Broo­k­ings Institution.

“There seems to be something broader going on here — personal on Trump’s side, piqued as he may be at India,” she said.

“And then on the Indian side, for Modi, it becomes a political issue.”

Faltering bromance

Trump and Modi appeared to forge a strong bond during Trump’s first term.

In 2020, Trump rejoiced as Modi invited him to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in front more than 120,000 people.

But Trump has since appeared irritated as he seeks credit for what he said was Nobel Prize-worthy diplomacy between Pakistan and India in May.

India, which adamantly rejects any third-party mediation on held Kashmir, has since given the cold shoulder to Trump as he muses of brokering between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Pakistan, by contrast, has emb­raced Trump’s attention, with its army chief meeting him at the White House.

US policymakers have long ski­rted around India’s sensitivities on Kashmir and sought to contain fallout from disagreements on other issues.

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, said that Trump had broken a bipartisan consensus with his “massive trade offensive” against India.

India is now thinking “I guess maybe we have to go show up in Beijing and sit with the Chinese because we’ve got to hedge against America,” Sullivan told The Bulwark.

Madan said that for the Indian establishment, the tariffs contradicted US assurances that unlike China, Washington would not use “economic ties to coerce India.” “If you’re India, even if you sort this particular issue out, you’re now saying, we used to see this increasing interaction with the US across many domains as an opportunity,” she said.

“And now Trump has made us realise that we should also see that integration or dependence as a vulnerability.”

Chance for China

For China, Modi’s trip is an opportunity “to drive a wedge between India and the US,” said William Yang, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“Beijing won’t miss the opportunity to present itself as a ‘reliable partner’ that is interested in deepening relations with New Delhi,” he said.

But he noted that India and China still had fundamental differences.

China is the key partner and military supplier of Pakistan and has sought to ramp up influence in the Indian Ocean.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

TOULON: Russian Pre­sident Vladimir Putin will have “played” his US cou­nterpart if the Kremlin chief fails to meet Ukr­ainian President Volod­ymyr Zelensky, Emm­a­n­uel Macron of France said on Friday.

President Macron exp­ressed hope that such a meeting would take place, but said if the Russian leader did not meet a Monday deadline to agree to the talks “it will show again President Putin has played President Trump”, and warned that France would push for new “primary and secondary sanctions” to pressure Moscow.

His comments came as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict sparked by Russia’s 2022 invasion of its neighbour appear to have lost steam after Trump moved to restore dialogue with Moscow.

“I think this is not a good thing for us all. This cannot stay without resp­onse,” Macron said after talks with German Chan­cellor Friedrich Merz.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

UNITED NATIONS: European powers said on Friday they were ready to drop a new sanctions push on Iran if it addresses concerns on its nuclear program over the next month, but Tehran denounced the offer as insincere.

Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, triggered the “snapback” mechan­ism the previous day to reinstate UN sanctions on Te­hran for failing to comply with commitments made in a 2015 deal over its nuc­l­e­­ar programme.

In July, “we offered Iran an extension to snapback, should Iran take specific steps to address our most immediate concerns,” Bar­bara Woodward, the British ambassador to the United Nations, said alongside her German and French counterparts ahead of a closed-door Security Council meeting on the issue.

“As of today, Iran has shown no indication that it is serious about meeting” the E3’s req­uests, she said.

Triggering the snapb­ack mechanism “does not mark the end of diplomacy. Our ext­en­­si­­on offer remains on the table,” Woodward said.

On a visit to Cope­n­hagen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the 30-day window before the san­ctions offe­­red an “opportunity” for diplomacy.

“We have this 30 days to sort things out,” she told reporters.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025

GAZA CITY: UN Secretary-Ge­neral Antonio Guterres has condemned the “endless catalogue of horrors” in Gaza, as the ter­ritory’s civil defence reported at least 31 killed by Israeli forces since dawn.

Israel, whose military is preparing to conquer Gaza City, is under mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its offensive in the Palestinian territory, where the UN has declared a famine.

“Gaza is piled with rubble, piled with bodies and piled with examples of what may be serious violations of international law,” Guter­res told journalists, calling for accountability.

Aya Daher, who was displaced from Gaza City’s Zeitoun district, said she had no shelter and was sitting outside a local hospital “just waiting for God’s mercy”.

“There were explosions all night. I was injured, my husband was injured by shrapnel, and my son was also wounded in the head. Thank God we survived, but there were martyrs,” she said.

AFP photos from the centre of Gaza showed lines of Palestinians fleeing south in vans and cars piled high with mattresses and bags.

Palestinians waiting for aid shot

Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli strikes and fire killed at least 31 more people across the Palestinian territory, including six shot while waiting for aid in the south.

The Israeli military said it was preparing to “expand operations against Hamas in Gaza City”.

Asked for comment, the Israeli military said it needed precise times and coordinates to look into the latest reports of 31 deaths.

The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City and its surroundings in the north of the territory.

On Wednesday, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avic­hay Adraee, said on X that Gaza City’s evacuation was “inevitable”.

UN seeks food points’ revival

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme, meanwhile, warned that Gaza was “at breaking point” and appealed for the urgent revival of its network of 200 food distribution points.

After a visit to the territory, the WFP’s executive director Cindy McCain said she saw first-hand that “desperation is soaring”.

The UN declared a famine in Gaza last week, blaming systematic obstruction by Israel of humanitarian aid deliveries.

Israel has severely restricted the aid allowed into Gaza. Distribution has been marred by chaotic scenes, with frequent reports of starving Palestinians being shot while waiting to collect aid at one of its four distribution sites. UN rights experts voiced alarm on Thursday at reports of “enforced disappearances” at aid sites.

Visa refusal

Meanwhile, the United States said on Friday it will refuse visas to members of the Palestinian Authority to attend next month’s UN General Assembly, where France is leading a push to recognise a Palestinian state.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly,” the State Department said in a statement.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2025