People in Gaza are ‘walking corpses’, says Unrwa, as agency says it has 6,000 aid trucks ready to enter – Middle East crisis live | Israel-Gaza war

In Gaza on Thursday, the distribution of food to desperate Palestinians was a picture of chaos.

Women going to fetch aid for their families said US contractors organising distribution asked them to come to pick up goods and then fired tear gas and pepper spray at them.

“The Americans said “go, go”, and then said no, get back. They sprayed us with pepper spray so we went away. Five minutes later they shot tear gas at us … is this American humanitarian aid?” said Mervat al-Sakani.

The US contractors are part of an effort the US and Israel have backed to take the lead on aid distribution from the United Nations, through a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The Hostages Families Forum, which represents the family members of those being held in Gaza, expressed “concern” that the Israeli mediation team had been recalled to Israel after Hamas delivered a new response to a proposal for a truce and hostages deal. They urged Israeli and American leaders to act quickly.

“Each day that passes endangers the hostages chances of recovery and risks losing the ability to locate the fallen or gain vital intelligence about them,” the statement said.

A senior Hamas source told Reuters on Thursday that the group’s response said no negotiation sessions had yet been held on a prisoner exchange, which it described as a top priority, and that it had submitted a new framework on the matter to mediators.

A senior Israeli official was quoted by local media as saying the new text was something Israel could work with. However, Israel’s Channel 12 said a rapid deal was not within reach, with gaps remaining between the two sides, including over where the Israeli military should withdraw to during any truce.

Iran condemned on Thursday a symbolic vote by Israeli lawmakers endorsing the annexation of the occupied West Bank, which Tehran’s foreign ministry said proved Israel’s “expansionist” motives.

The non-binding vote on Wednesday was “another sign of the expansionist… character of this regime, and we condemn it”, said a foreign ministry statement.

Yotam Ottolenghi, the Jerusalem-born British chef and bestselling author, said the level of hunger in Gaza is “shocking beyond belief.”

In a post on social media, he said he’s adding his voice to global calls for Israel to halt its attacks on Gaza and let aid flow without restriction.

“The sequence of events leading to this moment – with victims on both sides – cannot justify withholding food from a whole population,” he said. “This goes against any value I was raised on.”

Ottolenghi wrote a book with Palestinian Sami Tamimi called “Jerusalem,” covering Arab and Jewish cooking in the holy city.

Prominent religious Jewish leaders in the United States are calling on Israel to investigate a surge of settler violence against Palestinians and the recent killing of an American citizen by Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union for Reform Judaism and the American Conference of Cantors said Israel must undertake a “full investigation” into the death of Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian-American from Tampa, Florida, who Palestinian authorities say was beaten to death by Israeli settlers while visiting family in the West Bank.

A terminally ill 73-year-old Israeli woman has been charged with plotting to assassinate prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a rocket launcher, prosecutors said on Thursday.

According to the indictment, the woman, an anti-government activist from Tel Aviv whose identity has not been released, decided to kill Netanyahu after she learned of her diagnosis.

She consequently decided to “sacrifice” her life in order to “save” the state of Israel from the current government, the prosecutor quoted her saying.

She reportedly shared her plan with another activist and asked him to help her purchase a rocket-propelled grenade to carry out the assassination.

Israel brought its delegation home from Gaza ceasefire talks for consultations on Thursday after Hamas delivered a new response to a proposal for a truce and hostages deal.

The Israeli prime minister’s office thanked mediators for their efforts and said the negotiators were returning home for “further consultations”. Earlier it said Israel was reviewing the response from Hamas.

Two sources familiar with the negotiations in Qatar said Israel’s decision to bring its delegation back home did not necessarily indicate a crisis in the talks.

A senior Hamas source told Reuters that there was still a chance of reaching a Gaza ceasefire agreement but it would take a few days because of what he called Israeli stalling.

The source said Hamas’ response included requesting a clause that would prevent Israel from resuming the war if an agreement was not reached within the 60-day truce period.

Iran is ready to engage in talks on its nuclear program with the United States, but only if Washington takes meaningful steps to rebuild trust, deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Thursday.

Iran is set to meet Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3 nations, and the European Union’s deputy foreign policy commissioner on Friday in Istanbul. They will be the first talks since Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June, which involved US B-52 bombers striking nuclear-related facilities in Iran.

Gharibabadi said in a social media post on Thursday that to enter negotiations, Iran sought “several key principles” to be upheld, reported Associated Press.

He said these included “rebuilding Iran’s trust – as Iran has absolutely no trust in the United States – avoiding the use of talks as a platform for hidden agendas such as military action, though Iran remains fully prepared for any scenario; respecting and recognizing Iran’s rights under the non-proliferation treaty, including enrichment in line with its legitimate needs; and the lifting of sanctions.”

Friday’s talks will be held at the deputy ministerial level, with Iran sending deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-e Ravanchi. A similar meeting was held in Istanbul in May.

The United Nations said on Thursday it did not know how many truckloads of aid were awaiting distribution inside the Gaza border because Israel has not granted it access.

International criticism 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.

The Israeli military denied on Wednesday that it was blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Palestinian territory, claiming that 950 truckloads of aid were on the Gaza side of the border waiting for international organisations to collect and distribute it.

“Despite our repeated requests, Israel has not allowed the UN to be present at the crossings, which are militarised areas,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

“We therefore cannot verify the amount of supplies currently at the crossing,” he told AFP.

Laerke explained that the UN needed multiple authorisations from the Israeli authorities: firstly to get aid across the border from Israel into the Gaza Strip, where it is dropped off – the trucks returning to Israel – followed by another approval to drive trucks from inside Gaza to the crossing point to pick it up.

“It is very important to stress that it is not just about denials of requests to pick up the cargo,” he added. “Israel – as the occupying power and a party to the conflict – must facilitate humanitarian operations all the way till it reaches people who need it to survive.”

This means that, beyond simply authorisation, “they must provide the green light for trucks without unnecessary delays; allow teams to use multiple, safer routes; and order troops to stay away from the convoys, and never shoot at civilians along the allocated routes – or anywhere else”, Laerke said.

“Without the full set of conditions in place, safe and principled delivery cannot take place at scale. So even when approved, those missions are often impeded on the ground.”

At least six people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion in northern Syria’s Idlib province, officials said on Thursday.

There was no official statement on the cause of the blast, reports the Associated Press. The UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the explosion took place in an ammunition depot.

The Syrian civil defence, also known as the White Helmets, reported that at least six people were killed in the blast, which took place in the town of Maarat Misrin, north of the city of Idlib, on Thursday.

“This is the death toll only of those recovered by Syrian civil defence teams, who continue to search for those trapped under the rubble,” the White Helmets said in a statement.

Syrian minister of emergency and disaster management Raed al-Saleh said in a post on social media platform X that teams were transporting the wounded and dead despite “continued recurring explosions in the area, which are hampering response efforts”.

The state-run news agency, SANA, reported 140 injured in addition to the six killed, citing health officials, without giving further details.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday it was recalling its Gaza negotiating team to Israel for consultations, a day after the Palestinian group Hamas handed its response on a ceasefire proposal to mediators.

There have been 45 starvation deaths in four days this week and two deaths today so far, according to deaths reported by hospitals in Gaza.

By comparison, only 68 deaths are attributed to all other days since 7 October 2023, new stats from the Ministry of Health in Gaza show.

More than 40 of the 113 recorded starvation deaths in Gaza occurred over a four-day period this week.

A meeting between Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Israeli strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer is expected to take place in Paris on Thursday, a senior diplomat told AFP.

“There will be a Syrian-Israeli security meeting in Paris today, and Tom Barrack will facilitate it,” the diplomat said, referring to the US special envoy for Syria.

The diplomat added that Shaibani and Dermer, ministers from the two countries technically at war, will meet.

Several dozen French passengers were removed from a flight leaving the Spanish city of Valencia for Paris for what Spanish police and the airline on Thursday described as unruly behavior.

The carrier, Vueling, denied reports that Wednesday’s incident, which involved the removal of 44 minors and eight adults from flight V8166, was related to the passengers’ religion.

Some Israeli news outlets reported that the students are Jewish and that their removal was religiously motivated, a claim that was repeated by an Israeli minister online.

Spain’s Civil Guard said the minors and four adults are French nationals. A Civil Guard spokesperson said the agents involved were not aware of the group’s religious affiliation.

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said his workers are fainting at work from hunger.

Philippe Lazzarini wrote on ‘X’: “‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses’: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.

“This deepening crisis is affecting everyone, including those trying to save lives in the war-torn enclave. Unrwa frontline health workers, are surviving on one small meal a day, often just lentils, if at all.

“They are increasingly fainting from hunger while at work. When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing.”

The Israeli military said eight soldiers were wounded on Thursday when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop in what police called a “terror attack”.

The army said two soldiers were “moderately injured” and six “lightly injured” in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel.

“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it said in a statement.

Israel has made some efforts towards improving the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population in Gaza, but the situation remains dire, an European Commission spokesperson said on Thursday.

He added that the EU is assessing the situation and that all options remain on the table if Israel does not deliver on an agreement made with the EU earlier this month about improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

This agreement includes the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non- food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas, and the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes.

Israeli police said they were hunting a man who deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop on Thursday, wounding eight people in what they called a “terror attack”.

One witness said the driver cut her off the road near the central town of Kfar Yona, then “turned his wheel to the right, full gas, as fast as he could, and hit as many people as he could”.

Kineret Hanuka, 45, told AFP: “I saw only blood and heard them screaming: ‘It hurts!’ … It was so hard for me to see this.”

Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) first responders said they received a report at 9:25 am (0625 GMT) that a vehicle crashed into a bus stop near Kfar Yona.

A man and woman in their 20s were taken to hospital and said to be in a “moderate condition, with injuries to the chest and limbs”, the MDA said.

Three others were in a “mild-moderate condition, with injuries to the head and limbs”, it added. Three people were described as having “mild” injuries.