UN declares full-blown famine in Gaza
Children wish they would die so they could go to heaven and eat, charity official says, as half a million face “starvation, destitution and death"
Famine has been confirmed in Gaza City and its surrounding area for the first time, a UN-backed food security body says. The IPC says more than 500,000 people in the Strip are facing "starvation, destitution and death", with "catastrophic conditions" projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis next month, BBC reported.
“The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading,” the committee said in a report.
“There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Any further delay – even by days – will result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality.”
The report goes on to warn that “avoidable deaths will increase exponentially” unless a ceasefire is implemented to allow in humanitarian aid and restore the delivery of food and basic supplies to Gaza’s population immediately.
The committee said the report marked the fifth time it had been called to review an analysis on Gaza’s food crisis, noting that it had never been required to return so many times to the same crisis before.
The report said that was “a stark reflection of how suffering has not only persisted but intensified and spread until famine has begun to emerge” in Gaza.
Israel's foreign ministry rejects the report, saying "there is no famine in Gaza.” UN chief António Guterres says the crisis is "a man-made disaster" as he calls for unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza.
It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his cabinet has approved plans for a new assault on Gaza City. The IDF says it has told doctors and aid workers to start making evacuation arrangements ahead of its expanded offensive.
Shaima al-Obaidi, senior media manager at Save the Children, says children in Gaza told her "they wish they would die so they could go to heaven and eat food.” She added it "weighs heavy to sit here and tell you this [famine] announcement is not a surprise". Speaking to the BBC, al-Obaidi says she was in Gaza when aid was suddenly cut off during Ramadan, on 2 March. The day before, there had been "such a buzz in the office that lettuce was finally in the market and there was a discussion of what salad they were going to make that day to break their fast". "Within days, any sort of protein, meat, was not available. Within weeks there was no fresh fruit and no fresh vegetables, and within a month there was no flour, and if there was flour available it was three times the usual price," she says. "People were eating grass, they were eating leaves" - BBC
Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg says his country’s strategy regarding the starvation crisis in Gaza is to deny any responsibility. “The only way … most Israelis are looking at it, is to adamantly claim that any death in the Gaza Strip is the responsibility of Hamas and not of Israel’s,” he said, adding that this view extends beyond starvation, to “daily bombings and the daily massacres”.
Moreover, Goldberg noted that Israel exerts near-total control over Gaza’s access to goods. “Just about everything that isn’t smuggled into Gaza is controlled by Israel,” he said, citing arbitrary restrictions – such as permitting coriander one day but banning it the next. “Israel does everything it can to heap difficulty upon difficulty on any possibility of giving out this aid.” - Al Jazeera
“Let there be no doubt: this is an entirely engineered famine and the direct result of the Israeli authorities’ deliberate blocking of food, water and other humanitarian aid into Gaza, which breaches international humanitarian law” - ActionAid UK co-CEO Taahra Ghazi
Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. director of national intelligence, issued a directive weeks ago to the U.S. intelligence community ordering that all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations not be shared with U.S.-allied intelligence partners. The memo, dated July 20 and signed by Gabbard, directed agencies to not share information with the so-called Five Eyes, the post-World War II intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, multiple U.S. intelligence officials told CBS News. They spoke under condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters. The officials said the directive classified all analysis and information related to the volatile Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations as "NOFORN," or no foreign dissemination, meaning the information could not be shared with any other country or foreign nationals. The only information that could be shared was information that had already been publicly released. The memo also limited distribution of material regarding peace talks to within the agencies that created or originated the intelligence. The memo does not seem to prevent the sharing of diplomatic information gathered by other means separate from the U.S. intelligence community, or military operational information unrelated to the talks — such as the details the U.S. shares with the Ukrainian military to aid in their defensive operations. Contacted by CBS News, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred questions to the White House, which did not respond. "In general, the value of the Fives Eyes intelligence partnership is that when we are making and they are making policy decisions, we can both augment each other's intelligence and therefore know more about the plans, intentions, and capabilities of our adversaries," explained Steven Cash, a former intelligence officer at the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Homeland Security. "Among the reasons for that sort of default is the expectation that we and the other four are all sitting on the same side of the table with some other adversary on the other side," Cash said - CBS News
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of “trying to wriggle out of holding a meeting” to discuss peace arrangements, saying: “They don’t want to end this war.” Zelensky pointed to continuing Russian strikes on Ukraine, including on an American company’s facilities in Mukachevo, and a growing number of alleged provocations against Nato countries, including Lithuania and Poland. “[These are] not accidents – Russian impudence,” he said. “We expect our partners to respond in a principled manner. This war must be brought to an end. Pressure must be exerted on Russia to end the war. Putin understands nothing but force and pressure.” He was also quick to pick up on US president Donald Trump’s suggestion of more offensive actions. Trump on Thursday appeared to vent his frustration at Russia’s obstruction. In a post on Truth Social, the US president blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for not allowing Ukraine to “fight back” against Russia - Guardian
President Vladimir Putin’s delegation for high-level talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska was forced to pay cash for jet fuel to return home despite the U.S. temporarily easing sanctions to allow the visit, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC. According to calculations by NBC, fueling a single long-haul aircraft could cost around $85,000 at current jet fuel prices. The Russian president typically travels with a fleet of three planes, meaning the total bill could easily have reached into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “When the Russians landed in Alaska … they had to offer to pay in cash to refuel their airplanes because they can't use our banking system,” Rubio told NBC. “They face consequences every single day.” Rubio noted however that sanctions have not altered the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. “That doesn’t mean those sanctions were inappropriate, it means it hasn’t altered the outcome of it,” he said. Members of the Russian delegation and Russian journalists who accompanied them also reported being unable to use local mobile networks or to use their bank cards during their time in the U.S. American authorities temporarily lifted travel restrictions on sanctioned Russian officials through Aug. 20 in order to facilitate the Aug. 15 summit between Trump and Putin in Anchorage. Earlier this year, Washington granted a similar exception for the Kremlin’s special economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who visited the U.S. capital for talks with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in April despite being on the sanctions list.
FBI agents raided the DC-area home of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday morning in a high-profile national security probe. Federal agents went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., from 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” he said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began. The probe — which is said to involve classified documents — was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down “for political reasons,” according to a senior US official. Bolton’s X account blasted out a message at 7:32 a.m. criticizing Trump’s approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine as FBI agents were inside his home. It was unclear whether it was a scheduled post. “Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so. Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress - NY Post
Italy has been rocked by a 'virtual gang rape' scandal after the exposure of a shocking Facebook group where men secretly shared intimate photos of their wives to thousands of strangers. Outrage has gripped the country with politicians and activists describing the group as 'virtual gang rape' and drawing comparisons to the case of Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by her husband and his friends for years. The Mia Moglie Facebook group, which translates as My Wife, was shut down this week after accumulating over 32,000 members since being founded in 2019. Men would brazenly post pictures to the group of their wives in intimate states, undressed or asleep, without their consent. Posts were flooded with vile comments, including other men saying they wanted to 'rape' the women in question, with others praising the secretive nature of the pictures. Meta, which owns Facebook, closed the page last week 'for violating our Adult Sexual Exploitation policies'. The page was founded six years ago but it is unclear exactly how long explicit pictures had remained online. The sharing of sexually explicit images or videos which were supposed to remain private as well as revenge porn were made illegal in Italy in 2019. The disturbing group was first publicized by writer Carolina Capri, who said she felt 'nauseous' and 'scared'. The sharing of intimate photographs without consent amounts to 'virtual gang rape', she said. Meanwhile, more than a thousand people have reported the group to the police for cyber crime, Italian media reports. Lawyer Marisa Marraffino, who specialises in online criminal cases, told the Financial Times that those who shared or commented on the pictures could face up to six years in prison for illegal sharing of intimate images, privacy violations, aggravated defamation and even child pornography. The exposure of Mia Moglie has uncovered tensions over the patriarchal nature of Italian society. More than 50% of Italian women say they have been the victim of harassment or assault by the time they reach 19. They are also the least likely to be in full-time employment of any EU country, with a gap of 20 percentage points between genders, according to latest data from the European Institution for Gender Equality. The right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni is under growing pressure from opposition parties to take action against sexism. Left-wing party the Five Star Movement said it would ask the government to respond to the 'unacceptable patriarchal mentality that reduces women to objects and instruments of possession' - Daily Mail
**My heartfelt thanks to the management and staff of La Gemma Hotel for hosting me during this working phase of my visit to the former Italian capital of Florence. A great place to work, stay, play, entertain, relax, nurture the soul and hydrate!
The journals….
