Starving Gaza

Aid is slowly being dropped into the Palestinian enclave – but it's far from enough. View in browser Oliver Marsden • Tuesday 29 July 2025 Dear friend, Welcome to today's Sensemaker. Long stories short Starmer is to recall the cabinet for an emergency meeting on Gaza (more below). Trump told Putin he has "10 to 12" days to end the Russia-Ukraine war. A gunman killed a police officer and three others in Manhattan. Starving Gaza On Sunday Israel announced it would pause military operations each day in parts of Gaza and set up safe routes for aid convoys. Yesterday, two planes from Jordan and the UAE airdropped 17 tons of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.   So what? It's so far from enough. Twenty-one months into Israel's war in Gaza, aid agencies are warning of "mass starvation". Tom Fletcher, the UN's aid chief, says one in three people hasn't eaten for days. By numbers 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily before October 2023. 80 per cent of Gaza's population relied on aid before the war.   28 trucks now enter Gaza on average each day, according to Amnesty International. 1 aid truck can fit almost 19 tons of food aid, according to figures from the World Food Program. Israeli checks. On 2 March, Israel reinstated a total blockade of the Gaza strip, following the collapse of January's ceasefire. Israeli authorities say screening is necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting supplies, but aid agencies accused Israel of deliberately throttling aid. Entire consignments are rejected if one item is considered "dual-use" and potentially dangerous. Aid organisations say Israel often fails to clarify which items are restricted, leading to delays and denials. Some Israeli officials have admitted the limits aim to exert pressure on Hamas - turning aid into a tool of leverage. Unlike conflict zones such as Syria or Yemen, Gaza lacks an independent UN cross-border monitoring system to streamline and guarantee humanitarian access. That gap leaves Israel with unilateral control over approvals. What is getting in? International aid agencies like Oxfam, Save the Children and MSF are still delivering vital services in Gaza, from clean water and sanitation repairs to mental health support and cash aid. But fuel and other supplies are nearly gone. "The siege imposed by Israeli authorities prevents aid agencies from scaling up or sustaining relief efforts," said Nour Shawaf of Oxfam. "Until it is fully lifted, the ability to support Palestinians in Gaza will remain severely constrained, exacerbating needs and prolonging immense suffering." World Central Kitchen delivered 80,000 meals on 19 July - barely enough for a single meal for 4 per cent of the population - before food ran out. What isn't. UN agencies report 120,000 metric tonnes of food are sitting in warehouses outside Gaza: a three-month supply. Around 6,000 trucks loaded with supplies are stuck in Egypt and Jordan, awaiting Israeli clearance. Total stockpiles outside Gaza amount to 240,000 metric tonnes.   Diminishing supplies. In May the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private firm using private military security contractors, said it would deliver food at sites throughout the besieged strip. The controversial Israeli and American backed organisation began delivering aid with Israel's approval. The UN refuses to cooperate with GHF, citing its lack of neutrality. GHF runs just four sites in southern and central Gaza, far fewer than the hundreds previously operated. Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while trying to access aid at these sites since May. GHF claims it has delivered 86 million meals. "Not talking points, not headlines, but food," a spokesperson told ABC news. Oxfam rejects this: "We do not need, and will not accept, military or profit-driven intermediaries overriding principled aid delivery." And finally… In a new report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the organisation accuses a "genocidal regime in Israel" of "working to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza." The report also features a legal-medical analysis by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which says it has documented the deliberate and systematic destruction of Gaza's healthcare system. On Monday a spokesperson for the Israeli government called the allegation "baseless". The Observer News Matrix The Nibs Capital Economy, business and finance Protest music Last year, Neil Young's music was quietly put back on Spotify after Young's two-year protest against the streaming giant's deal with podcaster Joe Rogan. Now, another artist has yanked down their discography with the aim of forcing change. Aussie rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, but are boycotting the platform due to CEO Daniel Ek's investment into Helsing, a defence tech firm specialising in drone warfare. The band wrote on Instagram: "Can we put pressure on these Dr Evil tech bros to do better?". They can try. While some of King Gizzard's devoted fans have cancelled Spotify subscriptions, their audience is small when compared to giants like Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift (both with 82 million monthly listeners). Even completely AI-generated artists soak up millions of streams, all while making money for Spotify. Only a large-scale change in consumer habits could force change. Technology AI, science and new things Age verification fail The Online Safety Act came into effect on Friday, which means more age verification checks for social media platforms. But it didn't take long for users to start highlighting flaws. Verification checks on Reddit and Discord have already been circumvented using characters' faces from the video game Death Stranding 2, and an avatar of Dave Bautista from WWE 2K25. Gaming's commitment to verisimilitude lets users to change the characters' expression and pose, allowing them to follow age verification software instructions. Checks for these sites are provided by private companies and many users object to sharing their personal information, or indeed their face, with these firms. But as long as they can be fooled by the realistic graphics of Hideo Kojima's dystopia, maybe they need not worry after all. The 100-year life Health, education and government Life support Nurses may be joining NHS resident doctors on strike later this year after the lead nursing trade union voted to reject the government's offer of a 3.6 per cent pay rise. A spokesman for the Royal College of Nursing described the government's higher offer of a 5.4 per cent salary increase for resident doctors as "grotesque", warning that "as the largest part of the NHS workforce, nursing staff do not feel valued and the government must urgently begin to turn that around." A higher pay rise didn't stop thousands of resident doctors from walking off the job for five days on Friday to demand their salaries go up by as much as 29 per cent. The junior doctors' strike last year cost the NHS over £1.7 billion pounds and, on average, 49 day treatment delays. The cost of a strike by nurses, who outnumber resident doctors by nearly five to one, will likely be far greater. Our planet Climate and geopolitics No-flight mode The hacktivist groups Silent Crow and Cyberpartisans BY, supporting Ukraine and anti-authoritarianism in Belarus, have caused dozens of flight cancellations for Russia's national Aeroflot airline. Their hacks have dismantled more than 7,000 servers and workstations in Sheremetyevo, Melkisarovo, and other key data centers. The year-long operation gutted critical digital security systems and extracted 20TB of sensitive data, including flight histories and employee communications. Promising to publish the leaks, hackers left a message for Russia's FSB and cybersecurity services, saying: "Your digital security is negligible, and you yourselves have long been under surveillance". Russian lawmaker Anton Gorelkin called it a "digital war". Aeroflot has not disclosed recovery timelines, but its restoration is likely to cost tens of million dollars, the hackers say. Culture Society, identity and belonging Atrocity exhibition The artist and provocateur Andres Serrano has proposed a museum of all things Trump for the US Pavilion in next year's Venice Biennale. The world's biggest expo of art features national presentations across the city. The US Pavilion is organised by the State Department, which issued new guidelines for proposals emphasising "American values" and "American exceptionalism" while restricting DEI. For years, Serrano has been collecting Trump memorabilia, including a diploma from the defunct Trump University, Trump steaks, and signage from the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal. Serrano became famous in 1989 for his work Piss Christ, a photograph of a crucifix submerged in the artist's own urine, which was assailed by Republicans in Congress. More recently, he has photographed Trump himself, the late Jeffrey Epstein, and hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. So is he trolling or serious? This may not matter for a project almost guaranteed to appeal to the president's ego. Whether or not it's selected, Serrano's proposal suggests the national model of the Biennale is underwater. Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up and tell us what you think. Oliver Marsden @OliverGMarsden Additional reporting by Brad Gray, Bex Sander, Evan Moffitt and Nina Kuryata. Edited by Jess Winch.     More from The Observer Read When Trump met Epstein: 'They were best friends … He was his bro' Images of the partying pair with young women were largely neglected by the established media – until now Click here to read → Follow Follow The Observer on social media on your preferred platform:   The Observer     The Observer Food Monthly The Observer Magazine The Observer New Review   Listen Listen for free in the Tortoise app or wherever you get your podcasts: Want to change how you receive these emails? Update email preferences Copyright © 2025 Tortoise Media. All rights reserved. Did this email get caught in your spam filter? Add editor@newsroom.observer.co.uk to your address book to never miss an email again.