Food and medicine run low in Gaza as aid waits at border crossing
Summary
- Hundreds of vehicles carrying aid are waiting to be allowed into Gaza to bring in vital supplies
- US President Biden has secured an agreement with Egypt to allow up to 20 lorries to enter the territory
- Aid agencies are warning that far more will be needed - UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, says about 100 lorries a day will be required
- Earlier, UK PM Rishi Sunak met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, telling him: "We want you to win"
- Israel has continued to bomb Gaza and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes
- The enclave also remains under siege, with Israel blocking supplies of water, electricity, food and fuel across its border
- The most serious escalation in the conflict in decades erupted on 7 October, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people
- More than 3,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, the health ministry in the territory says
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen that Gaza is "on the brink".
He says he's hearing reports of people going back to the areas in northern Gaza that Israel told residents to evacuate from. This is because "they have absolutely nowhere to go in the south and they prefer to go back to their home, even if their home has been destroyed".
Lazzarini also says that, even in the context of his long career in war zones, the current situation unfolding in Gaza is a "major" crisis:
"It's a tectonic one. There is a huge risk of a spill-over. All the information we're receiving on the situation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is deeply concerning."
"I have sometimes the impression that the world is now losing its humanity," Lazzarini says.
Iran’s Mahsa Amini awarded EU’s Sakharov human rights prize
Top MEP says Iranian woman’s death in police custody last year ‘triggered a movement that is making history’
Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the country’s conservative Islamic theocracy, has been awarded the EU’s top human rights prize.
The award, named for the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel peace prize laureate, died in 1989.
Other finalists this year included Vilma Núñez de Escorcia and Rolando Álvarez, two emblematic figures in the fight for the defence of human rights in Nicaragua, and three women from Poland, El Salvador and the US leading a fight for free, safe and legal abortion.
Football: Algeria league suspended, no Belgium-Sweden replay
Algeria has suspended its domestic football league in "solidarity" with the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, UEFA says no matches will take place in Israel until further notice and Belgium vs. Sweden will not be replayed.
In a statement on the Algerian Football Federation (FAF) website, the FAF said it had "decided to suspend all football competitions and matches" to express "solidarity" with the Palestinian people.
The 16-team league is currently four games into its domestic season but was suspended "until further notice" on October 18.
"Expressing solidarity with the resilient, brotherly Palestinian people and out of respect for the memories of the venerable and glorious martyrs who fell victim to the savage Zionist aggressions in the Gaza Strip against the occupied Palestinian population, the FAF has decided to suspend all competitions and matches until further notice," the federation said in a strongly worded statement.
How one Russian fled the war in Ukraine, only to find another in Israel
Ilia fled his native Russia because he wanted no part in its invasion of Ukraine. Now an Israeli citizen, he tells FRANCE 24 about his experience of fleeing one war and landing in another.
Ilia, 25, left his home and family behind to avoid the war in Ukraine. But war has caught up with him in his adoptive home of Israel.
Like many Russians, the young Muscovite chose to leave his country in May 2022, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, fearing he would be called up to serve.
“I chose to live,” he says simply, seated on a park bench in his new home of Jerusalem.
Ilia, from a family of Ashkenazi Jews, says he refused to close his eyes to the injustice of Russia’s war. He couldn’t bear the thought of one day being drafted to fight in Ukraine.
GSDF Osprey arrives in Okinawa for 1st time
An Osprey tilt-rotor plane of the Ground Self-Defense Force arrived in Okinawa on Thursday for joint drills with U.S. forces, marking the first flight of one of the Japanese aircraft to the southern island prefecture, amid China's growing military assertiveness.The arrival of the aircraft came despite an Okinawa prefectural government request to the Defense Ministry not to use the airport in Ishigaki Island due to safety concerns over the U.S.-made Ospreys, which take off and land like helicopters but cruise like planes.
"It is very regrettable that it landed in disregard of the prefecture's request," said Okinawa Gov Denny Tamaki.
From Russia to the Middle East: Why China can’t afford another big conflict
Beijing is once again trying to have it both ways.It has spent over a year tiptoeing over Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Asian superpower has refused to condemn the invasion and instead provided much-needed diplomatic and economic support for Moscow.Now, as Israel’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas threatens to spiral into a broader conflict that could shatter stability in the Middle East, China has called for a ceasefire while criticizing Israel’s actions. It has also noticeably not condemned Hamas for carrying out what has been called the worst single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while voicing its support for a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel.
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