Condemnation pours in for Israel’s attack on aid convoy

All the latest developments from the Israel Hamas war.

Condemnation for Israel’s attack on aid convoy

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are among the countries which have so far condemned Israeli forces for firing on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza” and alleged that the latest event, which left more than 100 people dead, was evidence “of Israel’s intention to destroy the entire Palestinian population.”

“The entire world must realise that the atrocity in Gaza is about to become a global catastrophe with repercussions far beyond the region,” the ministry said. “We therefore call on all those with influence over the Israeli government to stop the ongoing violence in Gaza.”

The Turkish ministry described the attack as “yet another crime against humanity.”

The incident received condemnation from European authorities too, with EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, describing it as “totally unacceptable carnage”.

The UN has called for a probe into the attack.

“I condemn Thursday’s incident in Gaza in which more than 100 people were reportedly killed or injured while seeking life-saving aid,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote on social media.

“The desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the north where the UN has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week.”

France, Italy and Germany also called for an independent investigation into the attack on Friday.

More than 100 people were killed in the attack, bringing the death toll since the start of the Israel-Hamas war to more than 30,000, according to health officials. At least 700 others were wounded.

Hospital officials initially reported an Israeli strike on the crowd, but witnesses later said Israeli troops opened fire as people pulled flour and canned goods off of trucks.

Israeli officials acknowledged that troops opened fire, saying they did so after the crowd approached in a threatening way. The officials insisted on anonymity to give details about what happened, after the military said in a statement that “dozens were killed and injured from pushing, trampling and being run over by the trucks.”

After the strike, Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, said the Palestinian death toll from the war in the territory had climbed to 30,035, with another 70,457 wounded. Most of those killed have been women and children. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

Israel claims it has killed 10,000 militants, but has offered no evidence.

Impossible to aid Palestinians amid unrelenting conflict – UN

The United Nations has said it is almost impossible to assist Gaza’s 2.3 million people due to the ongoing violence.

It made the comments in response to recent Israeli claims that the international organisation itself is failing to deliver much-needed food, water and medicine to civilians in the embattled enclave.

On Wednesday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters a breakdown of law and order in Gaza and “insufficient coordination” with Israel on security was putting the lives of humanitarian workers at risk.

“That’s why we’ve repeatedly asked for a humanitarian ceasefire,” he said.

UN officials say Israeli airstrikes have targetted police officers guarding aid trucks, exposing them to looting by desperate civilians and criminal gangs.

Drivers have been shot at, attacked with axes and box cutters, and had their windows smashed, said UN humanitarian coordinator James McGoldrick in February.

Israeli forces have also reportedly fired on UN aid convoys carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza.

Israel’s deputy UN ambassador Brett Miller on Tuesday blamed the UN for refusing to deliver aid to northern Gaza and shifting the blame onto his country

At least one-quarter of Gaza’s population – 576,000 people – is one step away from famine and virtually the entire population needs food, according to the UN.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews eyed in new military draft law

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has urged his government to come up with a new draft law that would force ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the military, claiming the war in Gaza leaves the country with “no other choice.”

Military service is compulsory for Jewish males, but politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won exemptions for their communities to allow men to pursue religious education. This has caused resentment and anger in some quarters.

“The Torah has protected Judaism for 2,500 years; however, without our physical existence, there’s no spiritual existence,” Gallant said Wednesday evening.

“Every sector of the country needs to work together to protect our home,” he continued.

Gallant said he would also extend the enlistment and reserve duty requirements for the military as well.

There are approximately 60,000 ultra-Orthodox males of military age currently not serving in the military, according to Hiddush, an organisation that promotes religious equality. Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists after Hamas’ 7 October attack.

Ultra-Orthodox parties – a key coalition partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – want to maintain exemptions.

In the past, attempts to overhaul the draft law to include the ultra-Orthodox have drawn tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox to the streets in large, violent protests that blocked major roadways.

Aid workers face deportation from Israel

Dozens of humanitarian staff have been forced to leave Israel and Palestinian territories, according to a group representing aid agencies

The Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) said Israel has stopped granting visas for international workers in humanitarian organisations, hampering efforts to get food and other vital supplies into Gaza.

Others – including the key figures within aid organisations – are overstaying their visas and risk deportation to continue working.

Emergency response teams, experienced in working with Gaza, have been especially impacted, said Faris Arouri, AIDA director.

Israel’s visa block means aid groups have not been able to bring any experts into Jerusalem, where aid to Gaza is coordinated.

“We are being forced to advocate just to let staff come to Jerusalem,” Arouri said, adding that the visa freeze was unprecedented.

“There have always been ups and downs, especially since the second intifada [from 2000 to 2005]. There were phases where there were some restrictions or where access was harder. But never on this scale.”

More than 150 jobs were affected, Arouri said.

Nearly 100 visas of staff had already experienced or would do so within weeks, he detailed, adding that humanitarian organisations were unable to recruit the staff needed to scale up operations, as the situation in Gaza grows increasingly dire.

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By Olivier De Schutter, Co-Chair, and Emile Frison, Panel Expert, IPES-Food • Updated: 09/06/2023
– 18:47

It’s time politicians abandon these cynical games and tackle the challenges we are facing seriously, Olivier De Schutter and Emile Frison write.

Before walking out of the negotiations on the Nature Restoration Law last week, the EPP parliamentary group shared a rather dramatic list of problems with the European Commission’s proposal.

In a series of tweets in the group’s social media feed, it was claimed that the proposed law would lead to “increased food prices” and “even a global famine”.

As the European Parliament prepares to vote on the law on Thursday, we need a reality check — and an end to scaremongering around NRL and the EU’s Farm2Fork strategy.

Growing more food is not the solution to rising hunger

The reality today is that the world already produces more than enough food to feed a growing population, according to UN data.

Indeed for the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of population growth.

But unlike what voices for ever-more intensification claim, this hasn’t stopped rising hunger.

Rising hunger has little to do with levels of production — and everything to do with where that food goes and doesn’t go.

Around a third of the food we produce is thrown away or left to rot.

A vast majority of the world’s calories are used to feed animals — livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land (factoring in feed) while producing less than 20% of the calories. And around one-tenth of all grain is turned into biofuel.

Growing more food to direct to any of these ends will do nothing to reduce hunger or famine.

This helps to explain why, after the invasion of Ukraine, even as global diplomatic efforts succeeded in getting Ukrainian grain flowing again and emergency measures enabled the planting of fallow land set aside for nature protection, food price inflation still remains stubbornly above 5%, and queues for food banks are no shorter.

It turns out most of the extra production was used to grow animal fodder. Meanwhile, rising supermarket prices are connected far more to profiteering than they are to environmental regulation.

‘Feed the world’ advocates are missing the point

We have to be honest about the situation. Never has our food system been so industrialised, chemically intensive, and global.

Yet it has resulted in three food price crises in 15 years. And progress on global hunger is in reverse — thanks to volatile speculation-prone commodity markets and a debt crisis that is bankrupting countries and preventing them from tackling hunger.

It has long been known that the problem of hunger is one of distribution and poverty — but Big Food lobbyists continue to claim the contrary.

The “feed the world” advocates of the EPP are missing the forest for the trees.

The biggest risk to food production of all is climate change and the current industrial model that is decimating nature and making it harder to sustain necessary levels of production in the long term.

Climate change wiped nearly 10% off EU yields for some crops last year – and is already ravaging farm incomes on a regular basis.

Farmers are the victims of the existing system, too

Just last month, Italy experienced devastating floods destroying swathes of its agricultural heartland.

Spain and Portugal, toiling under one of the worst droughts in recent history, have requested the activation of the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism for the first time ever because their food security is at risk.

We know that soil degradation, chemical contamination, water scarcity, and biodiversity loss are putting crop yields at risk — and that industrial farming is a primary cause.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans is right when he says that food cannot grow “when the soil is dead and that there are crop failures due to drought”.

Farmers, the backbone of our food systems, are being hit hard by both economic and climate instability.

They face price volatility, both for the inputs they buy and for the products they sell.

Though giant agri-food corporations are reaping record profits these past two years, farmers are as much victims of the boom-bust cycle of food markets as consumers — where price surges lead farmers into overproduction, prompting farmgate prices to suddenly fall.

Farmers in some EU countries have even been protesting as they sit on large quantities of unsold commodities.

This can’t continue

We can’t go on like this. If MEPs are serious about feeding the world, they should jump at the opportunity that the Nature Protection Law and the Farm2Fork present.

Not only will it put us on a path to a more sustainable food system, help reduce waste and put more power in the hands of farmers and communities.

It will also do this while restoring our natural world, increasing biodiversity, and making everyone’s quality of life better.

Failure to take action now will leave Europe confronting a future of climate disaster, decimated biodiversity and water scarcity, with no tools in the box.

It’s time politicians abandon these cynical games and tackle the challenges we are facing seriously.

Farmers, consumers, policymakers and corporations — we need to take action for a food system that is much more diverse, resilient, healthy and sustainable in every region.

Will we stay trapped in a cycle of disaster?

There is ample evidence that farming systems that work with nature, like agroecology, provide economic performance, reliable yields, resilience to climate change, and preserve biodiversity.

Further delaying and diluting the Farm2Fork strategy does nothing for world food security.

It just keeps us trapped in a cycle of disaster while depriving Europeans of a more resilient future.

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, and Emile Frison is the former director general of Biodiversity International and an IPES-Food panel expert.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Tag: Famine