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US envoy Steve Witkoff visits Gaza aid site
Peter Beaumont
Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has visited Gaza and been shown one of the controversial aid sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.
Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy for the Middle East, had earlier met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring amid months of Israeli-imposed aid restrictions.
The visit to the site in Rafah by Witkoff – a former real estate lawyer with no foreign policy or humanitarian background, who has also met Vladimir Putin on Trump’s behalf – was reported by a number Israeli media organisations and comes as Human Rights Watch on Friday described the aid sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – as “death traps” that had become the scene of regular “bloodbaths”. The UN has said almost nine hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces attempting to reach the sites.
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France has started to airdrop 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and is urging Israel to allow full access to the area which it said was slipping into famine.
Earlier today French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced that the European nation would be sending four flights carrying 10 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Jordan.
Now, president Emmanuel Macron wrote on social media platform X: “Faced with the absolute urgency, we have just conducted a food airdrop operation in Gaza. Thank you to our Jordanian, Emirati, and German partners for their support, and to our military personnel for their commitment.
“Airdrops are not enough. Israel must open full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine.”
Face à l'urgence absolue, nous venons de conduire une opération de largage de vivres à Gaza.
Merci à nos partenaires jordaniens, émiriens et allemands pour leur appui, ainsi qu’à nos militaires pour leur engagement.
Les largages ne suffisent pas.… pic.twitter.com/dEzo3GXmi8
Summary
Here is a recap of events so far today.
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Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has visited Gaza and was shown one of the controversial aid sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Witkoff visited the site in Rafah and was accompanied by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
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Huckabee praised the GHF as he visited the site in Rafah – one of four GHF sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. In a social media post, he wrote: “GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!”
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The UN human rights office said on Friday that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip since late May, most of them by the Israeli military, AFP reports. “In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of (US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys,” the UN agency’s office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement. “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” it added.
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Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centres in war-torn Gaza of “routinely opening fire” on Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as “a weapon of war”. “US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
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Gaza’s civil defence agency said 11 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including two who were waiting near an aid distribution site inside the Palestinian territory. Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed in a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis, and four more in a separate strike on a vehicle in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
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A series of Israeli airstrikes killed four people in southern Lebanon, Beirut’s Ministry of Health said on Friday, offering a toll for attacks that took place the day before.
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Syria has pledged to investigate clashes in the southern province of Sweida, which killed hundreds of people last month, Reuters reports. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday that France is sending four flights carrying 10 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Jordan, Reuters reports. “This is emergency aid but still not sufficient” in the face of this “revolting” situation, Barrot told broadcaster franceinfo.
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France will suspend its programme to receive Palestinians from conflict-torn Gaza pending the outcome of an investigation into how a student accused of sharing antisemitic posts was allowed into the country, the French foreign minister said on Friday.
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Iran on Friday rejected accusations by the US and more than a dozen of its allies that Tehran had attempted to kill or kidnap dissidents, journalists and officials in Western countries. In a statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei described the claims as “baseless”, calling them “an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine”.
Here are some images that are coming to us over the wires
US ambassador to Israel praises GHF as he visits aid site where hundreds killed
US special envoy Steve Witkoff appeared in a number of photos taken in Gaza and shared on social media by the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, as the pair toured a GHF distribution point.
“This morning I joined … Steve Witkoff for a visit to Gaza to learn the truth about (GHF) aid sites,” Huckabee wrote.
Witkoff arrived in Israel on Thursday as part of a renewed US effort to mediate a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after negotiations broke down last week, and to discuss the situation in Gaza, a US official told AFP.
US envoy Steve Witkoff visits Gaza aid site
Peter Beaumont
Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has visited Gaza and been shown one of the controversial aid sites around which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.
Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy for the Middle East, had earlier met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid mounting international horror over conditions of starvation in Gaza occurring amid months of Israeli-imposed aid restrictions.
The visit to the site in Rafah by Witkoff – a former real estate lawyer with no foreign policy or humanitarian background, who has also met Vladimir Putin on Trump’s behalf – was reported by a number Israeli media organisations and comes as Human Rights Watch on Friday described the aid sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – as “death traps” that had become the scene of regular “bloodbaths”. The UN has said almost nine hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces attempting to reach the sites.
Human Rights Watch denounces 'death trap' US-backed aid centres in Gaza
Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centres in war-torn Gaza of “routinely opening fire” on Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as “a weapon of war”.
“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
Israel and the United States have backed a private aid operation run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at four sites inside Gaza, protected by US military contractors and the Israeli army, AFP reports.
GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that led to dire shortages of food and other essentials.
Since then, witnesses, the civil defence agency and AFP correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centres seeking food.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between 27 May and 31 July – most by the Israeli military – according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” HRW’s Wille said in a statement.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the HRW report.
It has previously insisted that its forces do not target unarmed civilians and strive to avoid accidental casualties.
France will suspend its programme to receive Palestinians from Gaza pending the outcome of an investigation into how a student accused of sharing antisemitic posts was allowed into the country, the French foreign minister said on Friday.
The move comes after officials said the female student from Gaza will have to leave France after the Sciences Po university in the northern city of Lille revoked her accreditation over the online posts, AFP reports.
“No evacuation of any kind will take place until we have drawn conclusions from this investigation,” Jean-Noel Barrot told Franceinfo radio.
Palestinians entering France from Gaza will undergo a second screening, he added.
France has helped more than 500 people leave Gaza since the latest war between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel started, including wounded children, journalists, students and artists.
UN says 1,373 killed while waiting for aid in Gaza since late May
The UN human rights office said on Friday that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip since late May, most of them by the Israeli military, AFP reports.
“In total, since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of (US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys,” the UN agency’s office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement.
“Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” it added.
Gaza civil defence says 11 killed by Israeli fire
Gaza’s civil defence agency said 11 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including two who were waiting near an aid distribution site inside the Palestinian territory.
Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed in a strike near the southern city of Khan Younis, and four more in a separate strike on a vehicle in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The Israeli army told AFP it could not confirm the strikes without specific coordinates.
Two other people were killed and more than 70 injured by Israeli fire while waiting for aid near a food distribution centre run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) between Khan Younis and the nearby city of Rafah, the civil defence said.
The army did not immediately respond to the report.
Lebanon says four killed in Israeli strikes on Thursday
A series of Israeli air strikes killed four people in southern Lebanon, Beirut’s ministry of health said Friday, offering a toll for attacks that took place the day before, AFP reports.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had targeted Hezbollah “infrastructure that was used for producing and storing strategic weapons”, including what the country’s defence minister described as the group’s “biggest precision missile manufacturing site”.
By failing to sanction Israel, EU leaders are complicit in its crimes. They must act now
Josep Borrell
If they survive Donald Trump’s attacks, the international courts will not deliver their final verdict for several years. But for all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, there can be little doubt that the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza, slaughtering and starving civilians after systematically destroying all the infrastructure in the territory. In the meantime, settlers and the Israeli army are every day guilty of serious, massive and repeated violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Those who do not act to stop this genocide and these violations of international law, even though they have the power to do so, are complicit in them. This is unfortunately the case with the leaders of the European Union and those of its member states, who refuse to sanction Israel even though the EU has a legal obligation to do so.
You can read the full opinion piece here:
Syria has pledged to investigate clashes in the southern province of Sweida which killed hundreds of people last month, Reuters reports.
In a decree dated 31 July, justice minister Mazhar al-Wais said a committee of seven people - including judges, lawyers and a military official - would look into the circumstances that led to the “events in Sweida” and report back within three months.
The committee would investigate reported attacks and abuses against civilians and refer anyone proven to have participated in such attacks to the judiciary.
The violence in Sweida began on 13 July between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had longstanding tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week.
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Iran on Friday rejected accusations by the US and more than a dozen of its allies that Tehran had attempted to kill or kidnap dissidents, journalists and officials in Western countries, AFP reports.
In a statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the claims as “baseless”, calling them “an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine”.
Western governments including the United States, Britain, France and Germany condemned in a joint statement on Thursday “the growing number of state threats from Iranian intelligence services in our respective territories”.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” they said.
“These services are increasingly collaborating with international criminal organisations to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials in Europe and North America.”
Baqaei said the accusations were “blatant fabrications... designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation”.
Sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip on Friday, prompting the military to launch an interceptor missile towards a suspected threat, the Israeli military said.
The military later confirmed that the launch was triggered by a false alarm, and no threat was detected, Reuters reports.
France sending 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza, foreign minister says
French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday that France is sending four flights carrying 10 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Jordan, Reuters reports.
“This is emergency aid but still not sufficient” in the face of this “revolting” situation, Barrot told broadcaster franceinfo.
A global hunger monitor said on Tuesday that a famine scenario was unfolding in the Gaza Strip, with malnutrition soaring, children under five dying of hunger-related causes and humanitarian access severely restricted.
US envoy to visit Gaza aid sites as number of Palestinians killed while desperate for food grows
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit food distribution sites in Gaza run by the controversial US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) where hundreds of Palestinians have died in recent weeks trying to get food.
According to the UN human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed in the vicinity of the GHF sites since the GHF began operating in late May. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said: “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military.”
Witkoff arrived in Israel on Thursday with Netanyahu’s government facing mounting international pressure.
He met with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday to discuss the humanitarian situation and a possible ceasefire, AP reports.
Following the meeting, a senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and the US was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas militants, and demilitarise the Gaza Strip, according to Reuters.
“The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had told reporters.
Trump on Thursday called the situation in Gaza “a terrible thing,” when asked about comments from his ally and Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who termed Israel’s offensive in Gaza a “genocide”.
Earlier that day and shortly after Witkoff arrived in Israel, Trump had posted on social media: “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!”
