Israel-Gaza latest: UN says Gaza aid blocked after Netanyahu accused of ‘killing babies as a hobby’

The UK has announced further sanctions and a suspension of trade negotiations with Israel, as it condemned its “monstrous” 11-week aid blockade and renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Foreign secretary David Lammy announced a series of measures on Tuesday as the UN warned that 14,000 Palestinian babies could die by Thursday unless action is taken to ease the crisis in which civilians are severely malnourished.

He announced the suspension of trade talks, imposed sanctions on three individuals and four entities involved in the settler movement, and said Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions were “wholly disproportionate” and “utterly counterproductive”.

Israel pressed ahead on Tuesday with its new military offensive in Gaza despite mounting international criticism, launching airstrikes that health officials said killed at least 85 Palestinians.

Israeli officials said they also allowed in dozens more trucks carrying aid. Two days after aid began entering Gaza, the desperately needed new supplies have not yet reached people in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, according to the United Nations.

Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents are at high risk of famine. Under pressure, Israel agreed this week to allow a “minimal” amount of aid into the Palestinian territory after preventing the entry of food, medicine and fuel in an attempt to pressure the Hamas militant group.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.

COGAT, the Israeli defence body that oversees humanitarian aid, said five trucks entered Monday and 93 trucks entered Tuesday. But Ms Dujarric said the UN confirmed only a few dozen trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday.

The aid included flour for bakeries, food for soup kitchens, baby food and medical supplies. The UN humanitarian agency said it is prioritising baby formula in the first shipments.

The Foreign Secretary has been “begged” to “save children’s lives” in Gaza as MPs from across the Commons urged him to refer to Israel’s actions in the region as a “genocide”.

David Lammy announced new measures against Israel but Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat backbenchers urged him to go further.

A number of MPs called on the Foreign Secretary to suspend all arms sales to Israel, sanction Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and to recognise a Palestinian state.

Backbenchers shouted “genocide” as Mr Lammy said in his opening statement: “We must call this what it is.

“It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

An Israeli politician has warned his country is becoming an “outcast among nations” because of the government’s approach to the war in Gaza.

“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set for itself the goals of expelling a population,” Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the opposition Democrats party, told Reshet Bet radio.

The UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher on Monday warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying within 48 hours if more aid doesn’t enter Gaza quickly.

Mr Golan’s comments represent rare criticism from inside Israel of its wartime conduct in Gaza. Many Israelis have criticised Benjamin Netanyahu throughout the war, but that has been mostly limited to what opponents argue are his political motives to continue the war. Criticism over the war’s toll on Palestinian civilians has been almost unheard.

Mr Netanyahu swiftly slammed Mr Golan’s remarks, calling them “wild incitement” against Israeli soldiers and accusing him of echoing “disgraceful antisemitic blood libels” against the country.

Mr Golan, who donned his uniform during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack to join the fight against the militants, previously sparked an uproar when as deputy military chief of staff in 2016 he likened the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi-era Germany.

Israel’s almost two-year-long offensive in Gaza has killed more than 28,000 women and girls, UN Women said.

At least one woman and one girl on average have been killed every hour in attacks by Israeli forces since they launched their retaliatory attack on the Strip in October 2023, according to UN Women’s analysis.

Among those killed, thousands were mothers, leaving behind devastated children, families, and communities, the agency said, adding that these figures underscore the shattering human toll of the conflict, and of lives and futures lost too soon.

“Since the ceasefire collapsed in March 2025, conditions have deteriorated further in Gaza, compounded by nearly nine weeks of an ongoing blockade on humanitarian aid. The entire population in Gaza is rapidly running out of food and essential supplies with increasing risks of famine,” the agency said.

“This means every woman and girl, (more than 1 million) is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Women and girls are trapped, facing displacement, rising maternal mortality rates, and a severe lack of safety and protection mechanisms.”

As the UN warned that 14,000 babies risked death from malnutrition by Thursday without urgent aid, there was a sense that, by the time foreign secretary David Lammy got to his feet, it was already too late and not enough.

As David Lammy announces the suspension of trade talks with Israel and new sanctions over the Gaza humanitarian crisis, political editor David Maddox explains why action wasn’t taken sooner:

The British government has imposed sanctions on a far-right Israeli settler known as the “godmother” of the movement.

Daniella Weiss, 79, is among the three individuals and four entities involved in the settler movement that were sanctioned by the British government yesterday over Israel’s “monstrous” 11-week aid blockade and renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Ms Weiss leads the group Nachala, which has a stated goal of enhancing West Bank settlements and has openly planned construction of unauthorised outposts.

The group has also been sanctioned by the UK.

“I’m not afraid of sanctions,” Ms Weiss told the Associated Press last year.

Ms Weiss, described by the UK as a “high-profile extremist settler leader”, was a key focus of the recent Louis Theroux BBC documentary Settlers, which shone a light on the tactics of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank.

The UK has described her as having been involved in “threatening, perpetrating, promoting and supporting, acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals”.

Britain has issued fresh sanctions against Israel over its “morally unjustifiable” escalation of violence in Gaza, and demanded an end to its “cruel and indefensible” 11-week block on humanitarian aid.

Foreign secretary David Lammy condemned the “monstrous” situation as the UN warned that 14,000 Palestinian babies could die by Thursday unless action is taken to ease the crisis, which has left civilians severely malnourished.

He announced the suspension of trade talks with Israel, imposed sanctions on three individuals and four entities involved in the settler movement, and said Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions were “wholly disproportionate” and “utterly counterproductive”.