Palestine

Israeli soldiers bound Mohamed Yousef’s hands behind his back as they dragged him to a military camp near the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in Hebron governorate, in late June.

With him were his mother, his wife and two sisters, arrested on their land for confronting armed Israeli settlers.

Settlers often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.

Yousef knew this, so he went out to defend his farm when he saw the armed settlers.

But as is often the case, it was Mohamed, a Palestinian, who was punished. At the military camp, he was left with his family in the scorching sun for hours.

While Mohamed and his family were released the next day, they fear they will not have the means to defend themselves for much longer.

“The police, the [Israeli] army and settlers often attack us all at once. What are we supposed to do?” Yousef said.

The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the incident.

Useful pretext

Things might be about to get worse for Yousef and his family, who, along with about 1,200 other Palestinians, could soon be expelled from their lands.

On June 17, during the zenith of Israel’s war on Iran, the Israeli government submitted a letter, a copy of which has been seen by Al Jazeera, to the Israeli High Court of Justice that included a request by the army to demolish at least 12 villages in Masafer Yatta and expel the inhabitants.

The Israeli army argued that it has to demolish the villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups.

However, a 2015 study by Kerem Novat, an Israeli civil society organisation, found that such justifications are a ruse to seize Palestinian land. From the time Israel occupied swaths of the West Bank in the 1967 war, it has converted about one-third of the West Bank into a “closed military zone”, according to the study.

And yet, military drills have never been carried out in 80 percent of these zones after Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes.

The study concluded that the military confiscates Palestinian land as a strategy to “reduce the Palestinian population’s ability to use the land and to transfer as much of it as possible to Israeli settlers”.

Yousef fears his village could suffer a similar fate following the state’s petition to the High Court.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen to us,” Mohamed told Al Jazeera. “Even if we are forced to leave, then where are we supposed to go? Where will we live?”

Rigged system

Many fear the Israeli High Court will side with the army and evict all Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918”, a battle that has been ongoing for decades.

Israeli courts have played a central role in rubber-stamping Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank, described as apartheid by many, by approving the demolition of entire Palestinian communities, according to Amnesty International.

The communities currently at risk were first handed an eviction notice and expelled in 1999, and told that their villages had been declared a military training zone, which the army dubbed “Firing Zone 918”.

The army claimed that the herding communities living in this “zone” were not “permanent residents”, despite the communities saying they lived there long before the state of Israel was formed by ethnically cleansing Palestinians in 1948, an event known as the Nakba.

With little recourse other than navigating an unfriendly Israeli legal system to resist their dispossession, the communities and human rights lawyers representing them initiated a legal battle to stop the evictions in Israeli district courts and the High Court.

In 2000, a judge ordered the army to allow the communities to return to their villages until a final ruling was issued.

Human rights lawyers have since filed countless petitions and appeals to delay and hinder the army’s attempt to expel the villagers.

“The [Israelis]…have been trying to expel us for decades,” said 63-year-old Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta Council.

Then, in May 2022, the High Court ordered the expulsion of eight Masafer Yatta villages. The court ruled that the inhabitants were not “permanent residents”, ignoring evidence that the defence provided.

“We brought [the court] artefacts, photo analyses and ancient tools, used by the families for decades, that were representative of permanent residence,” said Netta Amar-Shiff, one of the lawyers representing the villagers.

“But the court dismissed all the evidence we brought as irrelevant.”

Expediting demolitions

Amar-Shiff and her colleagues filed another case in early 2023 to argue that military drills must, at the very least, not result in the demolition of Palestinian villages or the expulsion of inhabitants in the area.

The legal battle, and others, is now being upended by the Israeli army and government’s request to evict and demolish all the villages in the desired military zone, said Amar-Shiff.

In an attempt to fast-track that request, the Civil Planning Bureau, an Israeli military body responsible for building permits, issued a decree on June 18 to reject all pending Palestinian building requests in “Firing Zone 918”. The United Nations and Israeli human rights groups have been notified of the new decree, although it has not been published on any government website.

Across Israel and the occupied West Bank, Palestinians and Israelis need to obtain building permits from Israeli authorities to build and live in any structure.

According to the Israeli human rights group Bimkom, Palestinians in Area C, the largest of three zones in the occupied West Bank that were created out of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, are practically always denied permits, while permits for Israeli settlers are almost always approved.

Palestinians in Masafer Yatta still submitted many building requests, hoping the administrative process would delay the demolition of their homes.

However, the Central Planning Bureau’s recent decree, issued to align with the army’s prior announcement, supersedes all these pending requests and paves the way for an outright rejection of all of them, facilitating more ethnic cleansing, according to activists, lawyers and human rights groups.

Once the decree is published, lawyers representing Palestinians from “Firing Zone 918” will have to go to the High Court for a final and definitive ruling, which is expected within a few months.

“There are many judges in the High Court who will either dismiss this case on its face or not order the army to stop demolitions until they rule,” Amar-Shiff told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, settlers and Israeli troops are escalating attacks against Palestinians living in the area.

Sami Hourani, a researcher from Masafer Yatta for Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, said the Israeli army has confiscated dozens of cars since declaring its intent to ethnically cleanse the villages.

He added that the army is arresting solidarity activists trying to visit the area, as well as helping settlers to attack and expel Palestinians.

“We are in an isolation stage now,” Hourani told Al Jazeera, adding that the villages in Masafer Yatta are under siege and cut off from the outside world.

“We are expecting the army to carry out massive demolitions at any moment.”

Doctors in Gaza have been forced to operate in darkness as hospitals face a power crisis due to Israel’s war on the enclave. Two of Gaza’s largest hospitals have issued desperate pleas for help, warning without power the medical centres will be turned into ‘graveyards’.

Boston Consulting Group questioned over involvement in establishing the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

A parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom is demanding that a US consulting giant explain its activities in Gaza, including its role in establishing a controversial aid group under scrutiny over the killings of hundreds of Palestinians.

Labour Party MP Liam Byrne, who chairs the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee, asked Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in a letter on Wednesday for “clarification and information” about its work in the besieged enclave, adding that the query was part of the committee’s “scrutiny of the UK’s commercial, political and humanitarian links to the conflict”.

Byrne’s letter to BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer comes after The Financial Times reported on Friday that the firm had drawn up an estimate of the costs of relocating Palestinians from Gaza and signed a multimillion-dollar contract to help create the Israel- and US-backed GHF.

Gaza health authorities say that more than 700 Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid at distribution centres run by the GHF, which has been disavowed by the United Nations and numerous aid organisations.

The UK newspaper also reported on Monday that the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), run by the former British prime minister, participated in message groups and calls for a post-war development plan for Gaza that relied on BCG modelling.

In his letter, Byrne asked for a “clear and comprehensive response” to a list of questions, including a “detailed timeline” of when BCG began work on establishing the GHF.

Byrne also demanded information from BCG about other companies and institutions, as well as funding sources, linked to the creation of the group.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid numerous reports that its US security contractors and Israeli forces have opened fire on aid seekers.

While noting that BCG had ended its involvement with the GHF, and that some of the associated work had been “unauthorised”, Byrne said the firm should provide specific details on what activities were not authorised, “when and how” the work was undertaken, and what actions were made to correct those activities.

Byrne also called for more information about BCG’s work on proposals to relocate the population of Gaza, which have been condemned by Palestinians in the enclave, rights groups and the UN.

“Who commissioned or requested this work? Which individuals or entities . . . did BCG engage with in this context? Is any such work ongoing or active in any form? Were any UK-based organisations – including companies, NGOs, academics or think-tanks – involved?” Byrne said in the letter.

Byrne directed BCG to respond by July 22, “given the seriousness of these issues and the high level of public interest”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also floated the idea of relocating Palestinians during his meetings this week with US President Donald Trump at the White House.

In a statement issued earlier this week, BCG said that “recent media reporting has misrepresented” the firm’s potential role in the post-war reconstruction of Gaza.

The firm said that two of its partners “failed to disclose the full nature of the work” they carried out without payment in helping to establish the GHF.

“These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorised work. Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards,” the company said, adding that the two partners had been fired.

Two of Gaza’s largest hospitals have issued desperate pleas for help, warning that fuel shortages caused by Israel’s siege could soon turn the medical centres into “silent graveyards”.

The warnings from al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in southern Khan Younis came on Wednesday, as Israeli forces continued to bombard the Palestinian enclave, killing at least 74 people.

Muhammad Abu Salmiyah, the director of al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest facility, told reporters that the lives of more than 100 premature babies and some 350 dialysis patients were at risk.

“Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil,” Salmiyah said.

“The hospital will cease to be a place of healing and will become a graveyard for those inside,” he said.

Abu Salmiyah went on to accuse Israel of “trickle-feeding” fuel to Gaza’s hospitals, and said that al-Shifa’s dialysis department had already been shut down to conserve power for the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which cannot be without electricity for even a few minutes.

‘Final hours’

In Khan Younis, the Nasser Medical Complex said it, too, has entered “the crucial and final hours” due to the fuel shortages.

“With the fuel counter nearing zero, doctors have entered the battle to save lives in a race against time, death, and darkness,” the hospital said in a statement. “Medical teams fight to the last breath. They have only their conscience and hope in those who hear the call – save Nasser Medical Complex before it turns into a silent graveyard for patients who could have been saved.”

Mohammed Sakr, a spokesman for the hospital, told the Reuters news agency that the facility needs 4,500 litres (1,189 gallons) of fuel per day to function, but it now has only 3,000 litres (790 gallons) – enough to last 24 hours.

Sakr said doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning, and the sweat from staff is dripping into patients’ wounds, risking infection.

A video from Nasser Hospital, posted on social media, shows doctors sweating profusely as they perform a surgery.

“Everything is turned off here. The air conditioning is turned off. No fans,” a doctor says in the video as he demonstrates conditions in the ward. “All the staff are exhausted, they are complaining [about the] high temperature.”

Israel’s relentless bombardment has decimated Gaza’s healthcare system in the 21 months since it launched its assault on the Palestinian enclave in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023.

Since then, there have been more than 600 recorded attacks on health facilities in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As of May this year, only 19 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational, with 94 percent of all hospitals damaged or destroyed.

Israeli forces have also killed more than 1,500 health workers in Gaza, and detained 185, according to official figures.

The WHO, meanwhile, has described Gaza’s health sector as being “on its knees”, with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties from Israeli attacks.

Suffocating siege

Marwan al-Hams, the director of field hospitals in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that “hundreds” of people could die in the territory if fuel supplies are not brought in urgently.

This includes “dozens” of premature babies who could die within the next two days, he said. Dialysis and intensive care patients would also lose their lives, he said, adding that the injuries of the wounded were worsening amid deteriorating conditions, while diseases like meningitis were spreading.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who recently returned from Gaza, said, “You can have the best hospital staff on the planet”, but if they are denied medicine and fuel, operating a health facility “becomes an impossibility”.

Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza since early March.

Over the past weeks, it has allowed some food into Gaza to be distributed through a United States-backed group at sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

But fuel has not entered the territory in more than four months.

“What little fuel remains is already being used to power the most essential operations – such as intensive care units and water desalination – but those supplies are running out fast, and there are virtually no additional accessible stocks left,” the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

“Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink. The deaths this is likely causing could soon increase sharply unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel in – urgently, regularly and in sufficient quantities.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 57,575 people and wounded 136,879, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

A top US Department of State official waived nine mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards to rush a $30m award last month to a controversial Gaza aid group backed by the Trump administration and Israel, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an internal memorandum.

Jeremy Lewin, a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) associate, signed off on the award despite an assessment in the memorandum that the GHF funding plan failed to meet required “minimum technical or budgetary standards”.

The June 24 action memorandum to Lewin was sent by Kenneth Jackson, also a former DOGE operative who serves as an acting deputy US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator. The pair has overseen the agency’s dismantling and the merger of its functions into the State Department.

Lewin also overrode 58 objections that USAID staff experts wanted GHF to resolve in its application before the funds were approved, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Lewin, who runs the State Department’s foreign aid programme, cleared the funds only five days after GHF filed its proposal on June 19, according to the June 24 “action memorandum” bearing his signature.

“Strong Admin support for this one,” Lewin wrote to USAID leaders in a June 25 email, Reuters reported, that urged disbursement of the funds by the agency “ASAP”.

Lewin and Jackson have not issued comments on the matter.

The documents underline the priority the Trump administration has given GHF despite the group’s lack of experience and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians near its Gaza aid distribution hubs.

GHF, which closely coordinates with the Israeli military, has acknowledged reports of violence, but claims they occurred beyond its operations area.

Lewin noted in the email that he had discussed the funds with aides to Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s negotiator on Gaza, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office.

He acknowledged that authorising the funds would be controversial, writing, “I’m taking the bullet on this one.”

‘Inhumane and deadly’

There was no comment from the White House.

Reuters said Witkoff and Rubio did not reply to a question about whether they were aware of and supported the decision to waive the safeguards.

The State Department told Reuters that the $30m was approved under a legal provision allowing USAID to expedite awards in response to “emergency situations” to “meet humanitarian needs as expeditiously as possible”.

“The GHF award remains subject to rigorous oversight, including of GHF’s operations and finances,” the statement said. “As part of the award, GHF was subject to new control and reporting requirements”.

A GHF spokesperson told Reuters, “Our model is specifically designed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Every dollar we receive is safeguarded to ensure all resources — which will eventually include American taxpayer funds — reach the people of Gaza.” The spokesperson added that such requests for clarification from the US government about fund applications were routine.

Speaking about the nine conditions that were waived, the spokesperson said, “We are addressing each question as per regulations and normal procedure and will continue to do so as required.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry has said at least 743 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,891 others injured while seeking assistance at GHF aid sites.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors, as well as Israeli forces, have opened fire on aid seekers.

Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.

Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarised scheme”, while the UN insists that the model is violating humanitarian principles.

Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza, where a famine looms as Israel maintains a crippling blockade, have no choice but to seek aid from the GHF despite the risks involved.

Washington, DC – The White House says Donald Trump’s “utmost priority” in the Middle East is to end the war in Gaza.

But as the United States president hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, the two leaders have heaped praise on each other. Meanwhile, Israel continues its assault on the Palestinian territory, where more than 57,575 people have been killed.

Analysts say that, if Trump is truly seeking a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, he must leverage his country’s military aid to Israel to pressure Netanyahu to agree to a deal.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group nonprofit, drew a parallel between Trump’s mixed messaging and that of his predecessor Joe Biden. Both men, he said, called for a ceasefire but showed unwillingness to press Israel to end the fighting.

“It’s like deja vu with the Biden administration, where you would hear similar pronouncements from the White House,” said Finucane.

“If a ceasefire is indeed the ‘utmost priority’ of the White House, it has the leverage to bring it about.”

The US provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance each year, on top of offering it diplomatic backing at international forums like the United Nations.

While US officials expressed optimism about reaching a 60-day truce this week that could lead to a permanent ceasefire, Netanyahu told reporters in Washington, DC, that Israel still has to “still to finish the job in Gaza” and eliminate the armed group Hamas.

Finucane, a former State Department lawyer, described Netanyahu’s comments as “maximalist rhetoric” and “bluster”, stressing that Trump can push Israel to stop the war.

He said Trump can use the “threat of suspension of military support” to achieve the ceasefire, “which very much would be in the interest of the United States and the interest of the president himself in terms of scoring a diplomatic win”.

Trump and Netanyahu ‘in lockstep’

Netanyahu arrived in Washington, DC, on Monday and took a victory lap with Trump to celebrate their joint attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities during a 12-day war last month.

From the start, the Israeli prime minister appeared to play to Trump’s ego. As he sat down to a White House dinner on Monday night, Netanyahu announced he had nominated the US president for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The two leaders met again on Tuesday, with Trump saying that their talks would be all about Gaza and the truce proposal.

A day later, Netanyahu said he and Trump are “in lockstep” over Gaza.

“President Trump wants a deal, but not at any price,” the Israeli prime minister said. “I want a deal, but not at any price. Israel has security requirements and other requirements, and we’re working together to try to achieve it.”

But Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that Israel is the party standing in the way of a ceasefire. She noted that Hamas has already demanded a lasting end to the war, which is what the Trump administration says it is seeking.

“While we know Trump has said he wants a ceasefire, thus far we’ve not seen Trump being willing to use America’s extensive leverage to actually get there,” Sheline told Al Jazeera.

Far from stopping the flow of arms to Israel, the Trump administration has taken pride in resuming the transfer of heavy bombs — the only weapons that Biden temporarily withheld during the war on Gaza.

Dire situation in Gaza

While truce talks are ongoing, the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza — which UN experts and rights groups have described as a genocide — are intensifying.

Hospitals are running out of fuel. Cases of preventable diseases are on the rise. Hunger is rampant. And hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli fire over the past weeks while trying to receive food at US-backed, privately run aid distribution sites.

Nancy Okail, the president of the Center for International Policy, said Trump appears to be interested in a Gaza ceasefire in part to boost his own image as a peacemaker and to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to bring peace to the world, seizing on Americans’ weariness of war after the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But so far, he has failed to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. And he oversaw the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran, even ordering the US’s participation in it.

The US president took credit for a Gaza truce that came into effect in January, only to let it unravel as he supported Israel’s decision to resume the war in March.

Okail said the atrocities in Gaza cannot be stopped with just verbal calls for a ceasefire.

“If it is not accompanied by action — as in the suspension of aid or suspension of arms to Israel — Netanyahu doesn’t have any reason to actually go forward seriously with the peace negotiations,” she told Al Jazeera.

Netanyahu pushes displacement

Even if a 60-day truce is reached, rights advocates are concerned that Israel not only may return to war afterwards, but it might also use the time to drive Palestinians out of Gaza and further entrench its occupation.

Hamas said on Wednesday that it agreed to release 10 Israeli captives as part of the proposed deal, but the remaining sticking points are about the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and guarantees for a permanent ceasefire.

Before Netanyahu arrived in Washington, DC, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz revealed a plan to create a concentration camp for Palestinians in southern Gaza, according to the newspaper Haaretz.

The publication quoted Katz as saying that Israel would implement an “emigration plan” to remove Palestinians from Gaza, which rights groups say would amount to ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity.

The idea of depopulating Gaza is not new. Far-right Israeli ministers have been publicly championing it since the start of the war.

But the international community started taking the idea seriously when Trump floated it in February, as part of his desire to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Netanyahu brought it up again during his visit, saying that Palestinians in Gaza should be free to leave the territory if they choose.

‘Involuntary transfer’

While the Trump administration has not re-endorsed the ethnic cleansing scheme in Gaza this week, the White House still suggested that Palestinians cannot remain in Gaza.

“This has become an uninhabitable place for human beings, and the president has a big heart,” Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“He wants this to be a prosperous, safe part of the region where people and families can thrive.”​​

Rights advocates have stressed that people under bombardment and with no access to basic necessities cannot have a “free” choice to stay or leave a place.

Sheline said the international fears that Trump and Netanyahu are working to ethnically cleanse Gaza and displace its Palestinian residents elsewhere are warranted.

“There was a lot of discussion of the idea that, maybe because the US helped Israel with its war on Iran, that would be the leverage used for a ceasefire in Gaza,” she said.

“But instead, it sort of seems to be something like: If Netanyahu agrees to a ceasefire, then the US will facilitate this involuntary transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza.”

For her part, Okail likened pushing people to leave Gaza under the threat of bombardment and starvation to shoving Palestinians out of the enclave at gunpoint.

“If expanding the occupation and ethnic cleansing is their approach to ceasefire, it means they want to kill any ceasefire attempt, not negotiate one,” she told Al Jazeera.

Trump administration says it is targeting Francesca Albanese for encouraging ICC war crime prosecution against Israel’s Netanyahu.

Washington, DC – The administration of United States President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on United Nations expert Francesca Albanese over her documentation of Israel’s abuses against Palestinians during its war on Gaza.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the penalties on Wednesday, accusing Albanese of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”.

Albanese, who serves as UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, has been a leading global voice in calling for action to end Israel’s human rights violations.

Israel and its supporters have been rebuking Albanese and calling for her to be removed from her UN position for years.

Earlier on Wednesday, she called out European governments for allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crime charges in Gaza – to use their airspace while travelling.

“Italian, French and Greek citizens deserve to know that every political action violating the [international] legal order, weakens and endangers all of them. And all of us,” Albanese wrote in a social media post.

Rubio cited Albanese’s push for the prosecution of Israeli officials at the ICC as the legal basis for the sanctions.

Trump had issued an executive order in February to impose penalties on ICC officials involved in “targeting” Israel.

Last month, the Trump administration sanctioned four ICC judges.

On Wednesday, Rubio accused Albanese of anti-Semitism.

“That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” he said.

The ICC charged Netanyahu and Gallant with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza for depriving Palestinians in the enclave of “objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine”.

Rubio also highlighted a recent report by Albanese that documented the role of international companies, including US firms, in the Israeli assault on Gaza, which she describes as a genocide.

“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” the top US diplomat said.

Trump’s ICC decree freezes the assets of targeted individuals in the US and bans them and their immediate family members from entering the country.

Nancy Okail, head of the Center for International Policy (CIP) think tank, decried the sanctions against Albanese as “devastating”.

“Sanctioning a UN expert gives the signal that the United States is acting like dictatorships and rogue states,” Okail told Al Jazeera.

Over the past 21 months, Israel’s US-backed campaign in Gaza has levelled most of the territory and killed at least 57,575 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

Footage from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron shows Israel installing mobile housing units in a section of the city formally under the control of the Palestinian Authority, raising fears of further settlement expansion.

Yemen’s Houthis have released a video showing their attack on the Magic Seas, a commercial ship they said had sunk in the Red Sea. The group says it’s targeting vessels linked to Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

The BRICS bloc of developing nations aims to challenge the US-led economic order. In theory, it has the clout to push through reforms to global governance. But critics say the expanded group faces rifts among its members.

BRICS leaders have criticised US policies, including trade tariffs, during the gathering in Brazil’s Rio de Janiero, but they shied away from naming Washington directly.

President Donald Trump responded by threatening a 10% levy on any country that aligns itself with BRICS policies.

And the UN special rapporteur says global companies should be held accountable for profiting from the genocide in Gaza.

Staff at the Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to redevelop Gaza into the Donald Trump-envisioned ‘riviera of the Middle East’, a report has found. The plan includes expelling Palestinians, as Soraya Lennie explains.

‘Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,’ UN humanitarian office says.

The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, has warned that the fuel crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade has reached a “critical point” and will cause further deaths and suffering in the besieged Palestinian territory.

OCHA said the fuel powering vital functions in Gaza, including water desalination stations and hospitals’ intensive care units, is running out quickly, with “virtually no additional accessible stocks left”.

“Hospitals are rationing. Ambulances are stalling. Water systems are on the brink,” the office said in a statement.

“The deaths this is likely causing could soon increase sharply unless the Israeli authorities allow new fuel in – urgently, regularly and in sufficient quantities.”

Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza since early March.

Over the past weeks, it has allowed some food into Gaza to be distributed through a United States-backed group at sites where hundreds of aid seekers have been shot dead by Israeli fire.

But fuel has not entered the territory in months.

Senior World Food Programme official Carl Skau also decried the lack of fuel in Gaza.

“The needs are greater than ever, and our capacity to respond has never been more constrained. Famine is spreading, and people are dying trying to find food,” Skau said in a social media post.

“Our teams in Gaza are doing their best to deliver aid and are often caught in the crossfire. We are suffering from shortages of fuel, spare parts and essential communications equipment.”

The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said that the situation at the medical centre is alarming due to the lack of fuel supplies.

“We don’t have enough fuel left until morning. If fuel is not available, generators cannot run, and hospitals find it difficult to provide care,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera.

“Blood banks, nurseries and oxygen stations are not operating because of a lack of fuel. Patients will be doomed to certain death if fuel is not provided to hospitals.”

The health sector in Gaza has already been pushed to the brink under Israeli bombardment and repeated displacement orders.

Aid workers and health experts have been reporting a rise in preventable diseases in the territory amid the dire humanitarian situation.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the enclave is seeing an uptick in cases of meningitis, a potentially deadly disease, especially among children.

“The catastrophic conditions in shelters, the severe shortage of drinking water, the spread of sewage, and the accumulation of waste are driving the health situation to further deterioration,” the ministry said.

Meningitis, which causes inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, can be caused by a bacterial infection.

In addition to the humanitarian crisis, Israel is pressing on with its intense bombardment of the territory. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday.

Israeli attacks killed dozens of displaced people in and around tents in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis and in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.

UN experts and rights groups have described Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza as a genocide.

United States President Donald Trump has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a second time in 24 hours to discuss a possible ceasefire deal in Gaza.

The unscheduled talks on Tuesday evening lasted just over an hour, with no media access.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump said he would be speaking with Netanyahu “almost exclusively” about Gaza.

“We gotta get that solved. Gaza is… it’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” he said.

The two men had also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday during Netanyahu’s third visit to the US since the president began his second term on January 20.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the latest meeting was “tightly sealed with very little information coming out”.

“The fact that it was so hermetically sealed, the fact that there has been no clear readout of exactly what was discussed, the fact that the meeting lasted just over an hour before the prime minister returned to his residence – all of it may indicate that there’s some kind of stumbling block, something that is clouding the optimistic position that the two leaders have adopted over the past 24 hours,” Hanna said.

Shortly before the unscheduled meeting, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had dropped to one from four, and he hoped to reach a temporary ceasefire agreement this week.

“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s Cabinet.

But Netanyahu, meeting with the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave was not done and that negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.

“We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’s military and government capabilities,” the Israeli leader said.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Jordan, said Israeli media are reporting that Netanyahu is facing “extreme pressure” to reach a deal on Gaza.

“But still, there’s been no breakthrough,” she said from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

“Israeli media is also talking about a delay in the travel plans of Witkoff to Doha, although earlier in the night, he had sounded very optimistic about possibly reaching a deal. Because according to him, only one issue remained problematic – which is, ‘Where will the Israeli army redeploy to?’” Odeh said.

“Now, this is important, because Israel wants to maintain control over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to the Israeli minister of defence, Israel plans to build a tent city in Rafah, where it will concentrate the population, control who enters, not allow anyone to leave, and then push the population out of Gaza to implement, according to the Israelis, the Trump plan of depopulating Gaza and taking over the enclave,” she added.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 57,575 Palestinians and wounded 136,879 others. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war, and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates.

An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Some 50 captives remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.

Trump has strongly supported Netanyahu, even wading into domestic Israeli politics by criticising prosecutors over a corruption trial against the Israeli leader on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges, which Netanyahu denies.

In his remarks to reporters at the US Congress, Netanyahu praised Trump, saying that there has never been closer coordination between the US and Israel in his country’s history.

Trump aide says Washington ‘hopeful’ a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas can be reached by the end of the week.

An aide to United President Donald Trump has suggested a Gaza ceasefire is close, saying Washington hopes to see an agreement finalised by the end of the week.

“We’re in proximity talks now, and we had four issues, and now we’re down to one after two days of proximity talks,” special US envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

“So we are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire.”

Witkoff said the deal would see the release of 10 Israeli captives and the bodies of nine. He added that the Trump administration thinks the deal “will lead to a lasting peace in Gaza”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Washington, DC, that while Israel “still has to finish the job in Gaza”, negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.

Trump and Netanyahu dined together on Monday at the White House during the Israeli leader’s third US visit since the president began his second term on January 20.

The two leaders are to meet again later on Tuesday.

“He’s coming over later. We’re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We’ve got to get that solved,” the US president told reporters at a cabinet meeting in the White House on Tuesday.

“It’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to.”

Qatar confirmed on Tuesday that Hamas and Israeli delegations are in Doha to discuss the ceasefire proposal.

“There is a positive engagement right now. The mediation teams – the Qataris and the Egyptians – are working around the clock to make sure that there is some consensus built on the framework towards the talks,” Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 57,500 Palestinians, internally displaced nearly the entire population of the enclave and placed hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation.

United Nations experts and rights group have described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide.

Netanyahu suggested on Monday that the US and Israel are working to ensure the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza – an idea first proposed by Trump in February.

Israeli officials have been framing the push to remove all Palestinians from Gaza Gaza as an effort to encourage “voluntary migration” from the territory.

“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn’t be a prison. It should be an open place and give people a free choice,” Netanyahu told reporters.

Rights advocates said the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, which would amount to ethnic cleansing, cannot be considered voluntary.

Prominent legal expert Ralph Wilde said that with the widespread destruction, siege and daily attacks in Gaza, the concept of free choice to stay there or leave “is a lie”.

“It’s forced displacement because that isn’t a choice that is made freely,” Wilde told Al Jazeera.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would meet with President Trump again on Tuesday to discuss a Gaza ceasefire. He also praised Washington’s “unprecedented” military ties with Israel following a meeting with Capitol Hill lawmakers.

This is a story about two Europeans who devoted their lives to the Palestinian cause and paid the ultimate price.

Francoise Kesteman was a French nurse who worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 80s. She was a communist and saw the displacement of millions of Palestinians as a fundamental injustice that needed to be addressed. She joined armed Palestinian groups resisting the Israeli occupation.

Franco Fontana was an Italian photographer who cofounded a Marxist-Leninist political group in the 1970s and organised exhibitions to raise awareness of the Palestinian cause. As a photojournalist, he visited Palestine and Lebanon, where he also joined groups fighting to liberate Palestine.

Kesteman was killed in 1984 in a paramilitary operation in Lebanon. Fontana fell ill in 2015 and chose to return to a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where he died and was buried, as was his dying wish.

Top British diplomat David Lammy says the US-backed aid distribution mechanism in Gaza is ‘not doing a good job’.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has decried the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying that the United Kingdom could take further action against Israel if a ceasefire deal to end the war in the Palestinian territory does not materialise.

Speaking to the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Lammy also criticised the new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza via a group backed by the United States and Israel, dubbed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

“We’ve been very clear that we don’t support the aid foundation that has been set up,” Lammy said. “We it’s not doing a good job. Too many people are close to starvation. Too many people have lost their lives. We have led globally on our condemnation the system that has been set up.”

Hundreds of Palestinians have been gunned down by Israeli fire while seeking GHF assistance over the past weeks.

Asked by a legislator whether the British government will take measures against Israel if the “intolerable” situation in Gaza continues, Lammy said: “Yes, we will.”

Last month, the UK joined Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in sanctioning Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.

Weeks earlier, the UK had also suspended talks for a free trade agreement with Israel over the blockade on Gaza, which has sparked a starvation crisis in the territory. And last year, London halted some arms exports to Israel.

While welcoming the moves, some Palestinian rights supporters have criticised them as symbolic and failing to impose serious consequences on Israel for its apparent abuses of international humanitarian law.

On Tuesday, Lammy condemned settler violence and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying that they are “flouting international law”.

Pressed on whether the UK’s pressure on Israel has led the Israeli government to alter its behaviour, Lammy acknowledged that the change is “not sufficient”. Still, he defended London’s record, including recent moves against Israel and support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

“I am very, very comfortable that you would be hard pressed to find another G7 partner or another ally across Europe that’s doing more than this government has done,” he said.

Ultimately, Lammy played down the UK’s sway in the Middle East, saying that it is “but one actor”.

The UK is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is also a major trade partner of Israel. And according to numerous media reports, the British Royal Air Force has conducted hundreds of surveillance flights over Gaza to help locate Israeli captives in the territory.

The UK has also cracked down on Palestinian rights activists at home, recently banning the advocacy group Palestine Action and arresting dozens of its supporters.

The Labour government in the UK has not recognised Palestine as a state – a move that several European countries have made over the past year.

Lammy said London wants its recognition of Palestine to be part of a concrete push towards the two-state solution, not just a symbolic gesture.

He added that the UK wants to recognise Palestine at a moment that helps shift “the dial against expansion, against violence, against the horrors that we’re seeing in Gaza, and towards the just cause that is the desire for Palestinian statehood”.

But Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Emily Thornberry warned Lammy that with settlement expansion and annexation threats, if the UK continues to delay the decision to recognise Palestine, “there won’t be anything left to recognise”.

“We should recognise a Palestinian state and then work towards ensuring that one happens practically,” Thornberry said. “But if we continue to hold back, it’ll slide through our fingers.”