Gaza suffering ‘unspeakable and indefensible’
‘UNSPEAKABLE AND INDEFENSIBLE’
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) has said one in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and cases are increasing each day, the BBC reports. UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X: “‘People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses’: a colleague in Gaza told me this morning.”
He added: “When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food & care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold. Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak & at high risk of dying if they don’t get the treatment they urgently need. More than 100 people, the vast majority of them children, have reportedly died of hunger.”
His comments came after over 100 aid organisations and human rights groups called on Israel to let supplies into Gaza. As the BBC puts it: “Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into Gaza, says there is no siege and blames Hamas for any cases of malnutrition.”
In the last couple of hours, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer released a statement which said: “The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible. While the situation has been grave for some time, it has reached new depths and continues to worsen. We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Starmer said he was holding an emergency call with E3 partners (Germany and France) on Friday to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need while pulling together all the steps necessary to build a lasting peace”.
He added: “We all agree on the pressing need for Israel to change course and allow the aid that is desperately needed to enter Gaza without delay. It is hard to see a hopeful future in such dark times. But I must reiterate my call for all sides to engage in good faith, and at pace, to bring about an immediate ceasefire and for Hamas to unconditionally release all hostages. We strongly support the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to secure this.”
At the same time, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was announcing the Trump administration’s team in Doha was heading back to America “after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza”.
Writing on X, Witkoff said: “While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith. We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.”
Meanwhile, in the past hour, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced France will recognise Palestine as a state, the Associated Press reports.
The newswire flags Macron said in a post on X that he will formalise the decision at the United Nations General Assembly in September. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he said.
BEEF AND BOATS
As Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles prepare to host their UK counterparts David Lammy and John Healey in Sydney later today, there’s plenty of commentary around this morning about the differing diplomatic relations facing the Albanese government.
Guardian Australia highlights how Trade Minister Don Farrell will warn in an address to the Lowy Institute later that Australia “will suffer” for generations if US President Donald Trump’s global trade wars persist.
“One of the chief designers of the global trading system, the United States, is now questioning the benefits of open, rules-based trade. The Trump administration is seeking to expand domestic manufacturing and influence the policies of its trading partners,” Farrell will reportedly say.
The trade minister spent yesterday trying to bat away questions over the Albanese government’s decision to lift restrictions on US beef at a time when Australia is hoping to avoid high tariffs from the chaotic White House, the AAP recalls.
On the shift in global trade and foreign policy by Trump, Farrell is also expected to say today: “What we risk seeing is a shift from a system based on shared prosperity and interdependence to one based solely on power and size. If our trading partners’ growth slows, without doubt we will suffer. The costs to consumers and businesses of a global economic slowdown will be felt for generations, and the shock waves of inflation will worsen.”
On Thursday the government said it will now allow access to US beef that has been raised in Canada or Mexico but processed in America, an announcement the Trump administration has already taken credit for despite Australian ministers saying the decision followed a science-led review which began before Trump was elected, the Australian Financial Review points out.
The Coalition, the Greens and the beef industry have all “requested the decision to lift the ban be subject to an independent scientific review”, the paper reports. Cattle Australia deputy chair Adam Coffey has told The Australian: “We fully support open trade, open access, minimal barriers, but if a biosecurity issue exists, then we need to know what the science-based review is.”
WA Farmers livestock president Geoff Pearson also told the paper: “[The US] doesn’t have a robust system like ours for traceability [of product]. We need to see the science and see they’ve fixed their traceability systems and their processing compliance … which didn’t meet regulations.”
He added: “Is it around the political side of things, with our prime minister meeting with Trump very soon? Is it to smooth over the relationship? That’s concerning.”
Agriculture Minister Julie Collins countered by saying the decision had come after a “rigorous” five-year assessment, with Farrell also denying the move was to create a bargaining chip, the AAP reports.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver told the newswire that regardless of the source of the decision it “might help us hang on to 10% or avoid a worse outcome, but I don’t think there’s any guarantees of that.”
Meanwhile, The Australian Financial Review also reports on Lammy and Healy’s visit to Australia for annual defence and diplomatic talks during which the ministers are expected to “rally around the importance of the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact as a keystone for both countries’ defences, as they push back against threats to the agreement from the Trump administration’s review”, the paper says.
At the weekend the four will travel to Darwin where the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales is now docked for the Talisman Sabre military exercise. The report says British officials will also host Australian superannuation fund representatives onboard the ship in talks aimed at increasing investment in the UK.
UK high commissioner to Australia Dame Sarah MacIntosh said ahead of the talks: “AUKUS is one of the most strategically important partnerships in decades, supporting peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic, while also delivering jobs and economic growth in communities across all three nations.”
She added: “AUKUS offers economies of scale and mass, new paths to innovation and economic growth, interoperability with partners, and a stronger collective defence industrial base. Ultimately it strengthens collective security across multiple theatres.”
The backdrop to the talks is obviously the Pentagon review into the AUKUS alliance as the UK and Australia await Elbridge Colby’s verdict, and ultimately Trump’s mood on the day.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
It’s the end of the week, time to purge the timeline with some cuteness.
Take a look at the pictures and video of a snow leopard cub born earlier this month.
The BBC reports the cub, which doesn’t have a name yet, is the first to be born at Chester Zoo in England.
Dave Hall, team manager of carnivores at Chester Zoo, said: “It’s a truly historic moment and a real cause for celebration — not just for our teams here but also for the future of this magnificent species globally.”
Dr Mayukh Chatterjee, regional field program manager for Asia at the zoo, added: “The birth of a cub here in Chester, alongside our conservation work in the wild, is a powerful symbol of what we can achieve together to help these iconic big cats thrive long into the future.”
Very cute.
Say What?
Bulls, moo. Bulls fight.
Barnaby Joyce
The former Nationals leader appeared on Sky News yesterday and did an impression of a bull, complete with using his fingers as horns. The impression was the latest absurdity in the story about Joyce and his former rival and now fellow net zero sceptic, Michael McCormack, reminding everyone exactly how shaky the foundations of the Coalition are.
CRIKEY RECAP
Messages from my friends say that Gaza is dying
Mohammad, a doctor specialising in child nutrition, messages: “My mother, 75 years old, melts like a candle in front of my eyes and I cannot do anything for her.” He sends a cartoon depicting a displaced and wounded family dragging themselves away from a freshly covered grave.
“The dead people are the only survivors in Gaza during the daily genocide,” he captions. “We are now in a state of extreme stress and exhaustion, our bodies are wasting away and we will be exposed to certain death as a result of starvation and exceeding our bodies’ ability to withstand. Can you help us — other than praying?”
I have nothing remotely satisfactory to give in reply.
‘Background use only’: How Labor justifies its silence on Gaza to the media
It would be low political farce if the backdrop wasn’t so horrific.
Labor’s primary response to the growing evidence of mass starvation in Gaza, and mounting interest by other governments in taking real action against Israel or to recognise Palestine, was to condemn a Greens senator for mentioning it.
A sad email from the Dems, Albo really wants you to see his fit, and ‘AI shaming’ is real now I guess
Much like the girl-powered jaunt into space early this year, “AI shaming is actually really problematic, you guys” feels like a take that might have had a little more cachet pre-2016.
We’re sure this research comes from a good place. But we’re even more sure that some of the richest people in the history of the world will at some point reference how, “fundamentally”, the roots of AI complaints is the “class privilege” of millions of people hoping to avoid having their job wiped out in the next five years.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan dead at the age of 71 (CNN)
DOJ meets with Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell; Trump to visit Federal Reserve (NBC News)
Trump White House rages over South Park episode, calls show ‘fourth-rate’ (Rolling Stone) ($)
Why are Thailand and Cambodia fighting at the border? (BBC)
Russian plane crashes in Russia’s far east, nearly 50 people on board feared dead (Reuters) ($)
Women win right to sue Qatar Airways over strip searches before Sydney-bound flight (ABC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Net zero battle has net zero positives for Sussan Ley — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): There’s no other way of looking at it: Sussan Ley faces a diabolical situation with the debate over whether the Coalition should abandon the 2050 net zero emissions target.
The issue is a microcosm of her wider problems. The Nationals, the minor party in the Coalition, are determined to run their own race on most things. The Liberals have become akin to two parties, split between those eyeing urban seats and younger voters, and right-wingers reflecting the party’s conservative grassroots.
Nobody misses the contrast. The Albanese government is beset by a host of actual issues around the transition to a clean energy economy. The renewables rollout is not going as fast as desirable and is meeting with resistance in some communities. Energy costs are high. But such problems are not putting any pressure on Labor’s unity.
The hunger crisis inside Gaza will affect the news you see about the war — Matthew Doran (ABC): These stories have been possible to publish because of the work of our network of talented and brave journalists and videographers who we work with on the ground — doing the legwork for us within Gaza’s borders, given Israel’s ban on foreign media entering the strip, something which is unprecedented in war coverage.
And now one of our dedicated colleagues was telling us he was struggling to do that work. He was sharing that he was suffering in the same way as hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian men, women and children.
And his story is not isolated. Other members of our team have also spoken of their hunger. These are Gazans, reporting on Gazans, and experiencing what Gazans are being subjected to as the war in the strip drags on.
