Play Brightcove videoThe UN has warned that thousands of babies in Gaza could die of starvation within hours if vital aid doesn’t get in, as ITV News Senior International Editor John Irvine reports
The UK has suspended trade deal talks with Israel and sanctioned West Bank settlers as it ramps up pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for a ceasefire and to allow further aid into Gaza.
In the Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary David Lammy described Israel’s actions as “monstrous” and condemned the actions of “extremist” settlers in the West Bank, saying Netanyahu’s administration has a responsibility to intervene to halt their actions.
Lammy said: “We have suspended negotiations with this Israeli government on a new free trade agreement.”
Adding that the UK is reviewing its co-operation with the Israeli administration, he said: “The Netanyahu government’s actions have made this necessary.”
During the same gathering, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the “level of suffering” in Gaza as “utterly intolerable”.
“We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel,” he said.
On the sanctioning of West Bank settlers, the prime minister said: “We repeat our opposition to settlements in the West Bank, and we repeat our demand to massively scale up humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
“The recent announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza, a basic quantity, is totally and utterly inadequate, so we must coordinate our response because this war has gone on for far too long.”
“We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told MPs on Tuesday
The Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, has also been summoned to the Foreign Office, where Middle East minister Hamish Falconer said he would set out the government’s opposition to the “wholly disproportionate escalation of military activity in Gaza” and emphasise the 11-week block on aid “has been cruel and indefensible”.
Israel has begun allowing a trickle of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip after sealing the territory’s 2 million Palestinians off from all imports for nearly three months.
Humanitarian aid organisations have warned of the risk of famine if Israel continues to block food and supplies from reaching Gaza. Credit: AP
On Monday, five trucks carrying aid, including baby food, entered the territory. The move was welcomed by the United Nations (UN), however, it called it a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed” to address the humanitarian crisis.
According to the UN, none of the aid has been distributed because of delays caused by Israeli military procedures. They warn that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza due to malnutrition.
Farhan Haq, the UN’s deputy spokesperson for the Secretary-General, says ‘we need to have hundreds of trucks going in each day’
Farhan Haq, the UN’s deputy spokesperson for the Secretary-General, told ITV News: “We are going to do what we can to provide the necessary support so we don’t have such a severe problem with malnutrition.
“We need to get many more trucks in. Yesterday, we basically got four or five trucks in before it got dark. Today, we’ve got dozens coming in, but even dozens is on the low end. We need to have hundreds going in each day.”
Until now, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been the main provider of aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the wider region, but has been banned from operating in the Palestinian territories under Israeli legislation that came into force in January.
Israel says UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are inevitably compromised by Hamas, and that it has abundant evidence of the agency being “infiltrated” by Hamas militants.
The Commissioner-General of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, defended the agency’s “no tolerance” policy, saying it “never received any substantiated information” from Israel regarding its allegations.
Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would control the whole of Gaza despite mounting international pressure that pushed him to lift a blockade on humanitarian aid.
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The UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement on Monday condemning Israel’s “egregious” actions and decried the expansion of military operations in Gaza.
Starmer, alongside France’s Emmanuel Macron and Canada’s Mark Carney, called for an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu hit back at the world leaders, saying their recommendations could invite further atrocities.
“By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottowa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities,” he wrote on social media.
Mourners at the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah grieve relatives who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip. Credit: AP
The expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza saw strikes overnight on Monday into Tuesday, which killed at least 60, according to Palestinian health officials.
Two strikes in northern Gaza hit a family home and a school-turned-shelter, killing at least 22 people, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
A strike in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed 13 people, and another in the nearby built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed 15, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Two strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, where evacuation orders had been issued, killed ten people, according to Nasser Hospital.
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