Jordan and UAE airdrop aid amid pause in fighting

Campaigners had attempted to breach an Israeli naval blockade on Gaza, but were intercepted late Saturday. The legal rights centre, Adalah, said its lawyers were in Ashdod and had been allowed to speak to 19 members of the 21-strong international crew, which included two French parliamentarians and two Al Jazeera journalists. The remaining two of those detained were dual US and Israeli citizens and had been transferred to police custody, Adalah said.

Earlier, the Israeli foreign ministry said the navy stopped the “Handala” boat to prevent it from entering the coastal waters off the territory of Gaza. “The vessel is safely making its way to the shores of Israel. All passengers are safe,” it said.

Binyamin Netanyahu has said there were “no more excuses” for UN agencies attempting to deliver aid to Gazans.

The Israeli prime minister and his officials have frequently blamed the UN for failing to distribute aid in the strip, with Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, telling Politico last week: “There are more than 900 trucks waiting … inside the Gaza Strip, and they [the UN] are just not distributing them to the people in Gaza.”

On Sunday, speaking during a visit to an air base, Netanyahu said: “There are secure routes. There have always been, but today it’s official. There will be no more excuses.”

France’s foreign minister has demanded an explanation from the Spanish airline Vueling after it removed dozens of French-Jewish teenagers from a flight on the grounds that their behaviour was “disruptive”.

Their parents complained about what some described as an “antisemitic act”, alleging that they were forced off the plane in Valencia on Wednesday after one sang a song in Hebrew. Vueling said the teenagers, who were on their way home from a summer camp, were taken off the flight “solely for safety reasons” because they were tampering with life jackets and oxygen masks. They have since been returned to France.

Jean-Noël Barrot, the foreign minister, has phoned the airline’s chief executive to clarify whether the teenagers “had been subjected to discrimination linked with their religion”, the French foreign ministry said. It added that the same question was put to the Spanish ambassador to France.

Carolina Martinoli, Vueling’s chief executive, assured the minister that “a thorough internal investigation was under way”, according to the foreign ministry.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, says access to aid in Gaza must be “urgently accelerated”.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon, Lammy said: “The humanitarian suffering in Gaza has reached new depths. Today’s announcement of a temporary pause by the IDF to allow humanitarian corridors to open and aid drops to resume is essential but long overdue. Access to aid must therefore be urgently accelerated over the coming hours and days.”

Lammy repeated calls for a ceasefire, an end to the war and the release of hostages in Gaza. He said land routes are the “only viable and sustainable means” of getting aid into the territory.

He added: “These measures must be fully implemented and further barriers on aid removed. The world is watching.”

Lammy said the UK was working with Jordan to get aid into Gaza, and that the government supports Qatari and Egyptian-led ceasefire negotiations.

German police have said they arrested 57 people during a pro-Palestinian protest held on the fringes of Berlin’s Pride march, which took place on Saturday. Some 17 officers sustained injuries during clashes.

The arrests were related to public order disturbances, including resisting police and throwing bottles or physical altercation, but also the use of antisemitic slogans as well as “symbols of anti-constitutional and terrorist organisations”, police said on social media.

The rally, which was independent from the Pride parade and attended by about 10,000 protesters, was organised by the Internationalist Queer Pride for Liberation, which states on its website: “No queer liberation without anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-Zionist struggle.”

Berlin’s annual Pride parade, held in a different district, also saw 64 arrests for insults, assault, and the alleged use of symbols linked to “terrorist organisations”.

Jordanian state media has confirmed that it has carried out three airdrops over Gaza, including one in co-operation with the United Arab Emirates, releasing 25 tonnes of aid.

On Saturday, Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, UAE’s foreign minister, described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as having reached “a critical and unprecedented stage”.

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, has called Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to urge him to improve conditions for “starving” Gazans.

Merz “expressed his deep concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza”, his government said. Germany is one of Israel’s biggest European backers.

Merz called on Netanyahu “to do everything in his power to achieve an immediate ceasefire”, according to his government, which added: “He urged him to provide the starving civilian population in Gaza with urgently needed humanitarian aid now. This aid must reach the civilian population quickly, safely, and in the required quantities.”

Jordan and the United Arab Emirates parachuted 25 tonnes of aid into the Gaza Strip on Sunday in their first air drop in months, a Jordanian official source said.

The official stressed the air drops were not a substitute for delivery by land.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has said it has enough food “in or on its way to the region” to feed the entire population of Gaza “for almost three months”.

It welcomed the announcement by Israel to implement humanitarian pauses and create safe, corridors, adding: “Together, we hope these measures will allow for a surge in urgently needed food assistance.”

The WFP posted on X: “These new commitments [from Israel] to improve operating conditions come on top of earlier assurances from Israel to … [allow] more trucks to enter Gaza with quicker clearances and approvals, use of alternative roads and routes inside Gaza, assurances of no armed forces or shootings near convoys.”

Earlier this week aid organisations, including WFP, said that not enough convoys with food were able to enter Gaza because of a partial blockade imposed by Israel. Israel denied there were any restrictions on getting aid into the strip and blamed Hamas for any malnutrition.

Two months ago, I wrote about the conversation I and every Jew I know was having in their own head as they read the news in the morning. Well, it’s now the school holidays, meaning that while the news is more horrific than ever, morning conversations about it are no longer just in my head. They are very much out loud, at the kitchen table, over newspapers with front pages that look like images from a horror movie. So this is the conversation every Jew I know is having with their children:

“Is that a real baby or a skeleton doll on that newspaper front page?”

“It’s a real baby.”

“Why don’t his parents feed him?”

“They can’t. They’re in Gaza and the people there are starving to death.”

“Even children like me?”

“Yes, children just like you.”

• Read Hadley Freeman’s column on the conversations most Jewish families are having in full here

Videos emerging from the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning show mobs of people storming convoys of lorries looking for flour and other food as Israel sets up protected humanitarian corridors.

Desperate Gazans scrambled and fought for the few supplies dropped by parachute overnight under a separate Israeli plan.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian affairs chief and a former British ambassador to Lebanon, said agencies were trying to step up the number of convoys to match the new conditions.

He tweeted: “In contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window.” His office on Friday had warned that “the starvation crisis is increasing”.

Kemi Badenoch said a ceasefire in Gaza was “the right thing” after she was asked about a Sunday Times poll showing growing sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Britain.

The Conservative leader said it was “very likely the case” the UK public was moving away from Israel because of reports coming out of Gaza but added that “war is a difficult situation”.

Badenoch told Sky News: “It’s been heartbreaking seeing some of the pictures, hearing those stories and what we all want to see is this coming to an end.

“A lot of people are suffering on both sides, but we mustn’t forget how this started. On October 7, a massacre occurred. It was an act of war. There are still people who are being held hostage and they need to be brought home. I also know that allowing a terrorist organisation to win is not going to be safe, not just for Israel, but for the rest of the world.”

At about 7pm on July 30 last year Israeli missiles slammed into a residential building in southern Beirut, injuring more than 70 people and killing two children, three women and one man whose habits were so secretive that initial Lebanese media reports featured pictures of the wrong person.

He was Fuad Shukr, one of the founders of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, and among the movement’s most senior commanders.

Hours later and more than 1,000 miles away in the mountainous north Tehran neighbourhood of Neshat the night air echoed to another explosion. This blast, at a secret Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse, killed Ismail Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas.

• Read in full: Fuelled by rivalry, Israeli intelligence’s ruthlessly effective year

British recognition of a Palestinian state is a “matter of time”, a government minister said, after Sir Keir Starmer rejected a call from Labour MPs to follow the move made by President Macron.

James Murray said the government was “fully committed” to the formal recognition of a Palestinian state and added: “It’s not a question of if, what we now need to focus on is how do we make Palestinian statehood a reality.”

He told Sky News: “We need to work with international partners and we need to use that moment to galvanise change. It needs to be part of a pathway to peace. One hundred forty countries have already recognised Palestine. The suffering is still continuing.”

President Trump, who is due to meet Starmer on Monday during a visit to Scotland, said Macron’s announcement of formal recognition was “not going to change anything”.

The UK will press ahead with aid airdrops into Gaza despite the “real limits and drawbacks”, a government minister said.

James Murray, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said the situation was “desperate and urgent” because of the restrictions on aid deliveries.

“Until aid is able to get in at the scale and quantity that is needed, we need to be doing everything we possibly can to help,” he told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme. “And that’s why we’re working with the Jordanian authorities to get aid in through airdrops.”

Israel announced on Sunday morning that it would pause military operations in some parts of Gaza and establish humanitarian corridors for aid. “Let’s see what happens with that,” Murray said, when asked whether it would help people get food.

For a moment, I could not recognise her. The video call had finally gone through after days of failed attempts. The connection crackled, the image was grainy, but then her face appeared and I froze. It took me a few seconds to realise it was my mother.

Her face had changed. The woman I knew — strong, warm, composed — now looked frail and unfamiliar, her skin pale, her eyes sunken. Her voice, once clear and confident, had become raspy and strained.

“Look at my wrinkles,” she said, forcing a smile and pulling at the skin on her cheeks. “I’ve grown old in this war.” I tried to keep the tone light. “You’re still the most beautiful woman I know,” I said. “What’s your skincare secret?” She replied: “We haven’t had proper food in days.”

• Read our reporter Amal Helles’ account of harrowing phone calls with her family in Gaza

Amnesty International projected the message “Stop the genocide in Gaza” on Paris’s Olympic balloon as it rose on Saturday night to commemorate the anniversary of last year’s Paris Olympics.

This came as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, accused Israeli troops who boarded a boat that pro-Palestinian activists had been sailing towards Gaza on of “kidnapping” two of his party’s MPs.

The two MPs, Emma Fourreau and Gabrielle Cathala, were among 21 people on board, including European politicians and two journalists from the Al Jazeera news channel.

The Freedom Flotilla group, which organised the sailing, said its “Handala” boat had been “intercepted and boarded illegally by Israeli forces whilst in international waters”.

A previous boat sent by the group, carrying Greta Thunberg, the Swedish campaigner, was intercepted by Israeli forces in June and towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Arab countries will condemn Hamas for the first time and call for its disarmament as they try to encourage more European countries to recognise a Palestinian state, the French foreign minister has said.

Jean-Noël Barrot told the Journal du Dimanche that a declaration would be made at a UN meeting in New York this week as part of a long-planned initiative between France and Saudi Arabia.

President Macron said France will formally recognise a Palestinian state in September, a statement which has divided opinion in the country. Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally said it was tantamount to “recognising a Hamas state”.

The Republicans, the centre-right party of Macron’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, said it was “too soon” to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Left-wing parties welcomed the move but some urged the government to go further and impose an arms embargo on Israel.

Israel’s military has released footage of its humanitarian airdrop in Gaza, the first since the start of the war in October 2023.

The IDF said the aid parachuted into the territory overnight included seven pallets of flour, sugar and canned food.

Aid agencies have criticised the use of airdrops as dangerous, expensive and inefficient and continue to argue that a huge increase in deliveries by road is required. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said aid airdrops were a “distraction” and added: “Driving aid through is much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper and safer. It’s more dignified for the people of Gaza.”

Sir Keir Starmer will personally urge President Trump to resume Gaza ceasefire negotiations as the UK prepares to join efforts to air drop aid and evacuate children from the strip.

The prime minister will meet the president at his golf course in Turnberry, South Ayrshire, on Monday amid international alarm about conditions in the territory. No 10 has said there is “unspeakable suffering and starvation”. Early on Sunday, the IDF said it had made an airdrop of aid to Gaza for the first time since last October and announced a “tactical pause in military activities” in some areas to support the international humanitarian effort.

Starmer is expected to ask the president, who praised him when he touched down in Scotland last week, to revive the peace talks after the US and Israel withdrew their negotiation teams from Qatar. Trump has since blamed Hamas, saying the terrorist group “didn’t really want to make a deal”.

• Read in full: Act on Gaza, Keir Starmer will urge Trump as IDF carries out aid drop

President Herzog of Israel continued to insist on Sunday that Hamas was looting aid, despite reports playing down the longstanding allegation.

The New York Times, citing two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved, said internal reviews by the Israel Defence Forces had found no proof that Hamas had ever systematically stolen aid. “In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the UN aid delivery system was largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population,” it added.

The report followed a similar assessment leaked last week that USAid, the main US government aid organisation, had also concluded there was no proof its own supplies had been looted by Hamas.

Allegations that Hamas was looting aid were the main reason given by Israel over the past two years for restricting deliveries and, in May, handing over the lead distribution role to a new, US-backed organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The Israeli government did not immediately comment on the report, and the IDF did not dispute its findings.

In a tweet on Sunday Herzog, while welcoming the announcement of increased aid, said: “It is unacceptable that aid delivered to Gaza remains undistributed or is hijacked by Hamas, even as they falsely accuse Israel of blocking it.”

Even until the last few days, as images of skin-and-bone children began to appear on the world’s front pages, some Israeli officials and ministers were denying there was hunger in Gaza (Richard Spencer writes).

Some far-right ministers went further, positively backing policies that would “drive out” Palestinians from Gaza. Others conceded there might be problems but blamed United Nations agencies for failing to distribute aid that was gathering in warehouses.

The UN says its aid convoys are blocked and delayed by Israeli troops demanding to inspect them, a tortuous process.

The first change in policy, announced on Friday night, said air drops would be used to get food straight to where it was needed, including supplies provided by the UK. These began on Saturday.

However, on Sunday Israel said it would meet a key demand by aid agencies: for clear, protected aid corridors to population centres in Gaza to speed supply.

In a change in policy, Israel has allowed aid to start flowing through the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which it controls and had previously blocked.

Reports in Egyptian state media, not challenged by the Israeli authorities, said aid lorries had begun moving through the Rafah crossing, where they had been held.

They will still have to transit to the main crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, to be checked by Israeli troops before they are allowed to distribute supplies, though UN officials say there has never been a case of their convoys being found to contain weapons or contraband.

A “humanitarian pause” has come into effect in three key areas of Gaza, after Israel gave in to mounting pressure from around the world over famine conditions in the Strip.

The Israel Defence Forces said they would stop military operations in Gaza City and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and al-Mawasi, the main area earlier designated a safe zone in the south of the territory, at 10am local time. The daily humanitarian pauses until further notice would last until 8pm every evening, they said.

The three areas have large populations of displaced people, and do not currently have Israeli ground troops present.