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US gave $3M in Gaza food aid, contradicting Trump’s $60M claim: Report

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Palestinians struggling with hunger in the Gaza Strip, under Israeli attacks and blockade, arrive at the aid distribution point near the Zikim Crossing in Gaza to access the limited supplies of flour, on August 2, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the US provided $60 million in food aid to Gaza, but The Washington Post in a report published Saturday said only $3 million has been disbursed so far, Anadolu reports.

Citing State Department officials, the report said $30 million had been allocated from the US International Disaster Assistance fund to support food aid in Gaza through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US- and Israeli-backed aid group. Of that total, just 10% – around $3 million – has been delivered.

Critics have described GHF aid sites in Gaza as “death traps,” with the UN reporting that Israeli forces have killed over 1,300 Palestinians seeking food at its distribution points since late May. As Gaza teeters on the brink of famine under the ongoing Israeli blockade, its Health Ministry said Saturday that the total death toll from hunger has risen to 169, including 93 children, since Oct. 7, 2023.

READ: Trump’s special envoy to enter Gaza on Friday to inspect food distribution sites: White House

According to the WaPo report, State Department spokesperson confirmed that $30 million had been allocated from the department’s International Disaster Assistance fund but declined to address Trump’s comments, which he made during public appearances over the past week.

“We gave $60 million a couple of weeks ago,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “Nobody said anything about it. Nobody said thank you.”

The newspaper also cited a report on internal briefings by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s aides to congressional committees, saying Israel had agreed to match $30 million from the US. The Israeli government has not confirmed this, and the State Department declined to comment.

Witkoff visited an aid center in southern Gaza on Friday operated by the GHF. He said the aim was to give President Donald Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”

READ: Gaza government says most of 36 aid trucks looted amid security chaos

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Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner are called evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner are called evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Continue ReadingUS gave $3M in Gaza food aid, contradicting Trump’s $60M claim: Report

Israeli strike on Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza kills staff member

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Members of the Palestine Red Crescent and other emergency services pray by the bodies of fellow rescuers killed a week earlier by Israeli forces, during a funeral procession at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2025. [Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images]

An Israeli airstrike targeted the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in southern Gaza early Sunday, killing a staff member and injuring two others, the organization said, Anadolu reports.

Red Crescent said Israeli fighter jets hit the first floor of its building in the city of Khan Younis, setting it on fire and causing significant damage.

“Our headquarters’ location is well known to the occupying forces and clearly marked with the protective red emblem. This was not a mistake,” the organization said. “This deliberate attack on a protected Red Crescent facility is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law — it is a war crime.”

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier reported that a staff member was killed and three others were injured in the attack.

The society renewed its call for “accountability and for the protection of all humanitarian and medical personnel.”

READ: Illegal Israeli settlers kill Palestinian, wound 8 others in West Bank town attack

The attack came after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited Gaza on Saturday to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory, where deaths by hunger and starvation have climbed in recent days.

“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” said to Qu Dongyu, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal war on Gaza, killing more than 60,400 Palestinians since October 2023.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: No arms to Israel: Canada reaffirms Gaza arms ban

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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Continue ReadingIsraeli strike on Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza kills staff member

No arms to Israel: Canada reaffirms Gaza arms ban

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand arrives to attend the first day of the NATO Defence Ministers’ Meeting on February 14, 2023 in Brussels, Belgium. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]

Canada on Saturday reaffirmed its ban on military exports that could be used in Gaza, rejecting claims in a July 29 report suggesting that arms still flow to Israel from Canada, Anadolu reports.

“Canada has drawn, and will continue to draw, a hard line: since January 2024, we have refused any new permits for controlled goods that could be used in Gaza. Not one has been approved.

“We went further by freezing all existing permits in 2024 that could have allowed military components to be used in Gaza, and those permits remain suspended today,” the country’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.

The law clearly prohibits any company from exporting controlled goods without a valid permit, Anand stated, adding that the Canadian officials will make sure those who break it will face legal consequences, including fines, seizures, and criminal charges.

“We will not allow Canadian-made weapons” to contribute to this conflict in any form, she highlighted.

After reviewing the July 29, 2025 report, the Canadian Foreign Ministry concluded that several of the report’s claims “are misleading and significantly misrepresent the facts,” Anand said.

READ: Canada to recognise Palestine, joining growing Western bloc confronting Israeli genocide

“The items identified as ‘bullets’ are in fact paintball-style projectiles. They are accompanied by equipment designed to make a firearm inoperable with traditional rounds.

“These cannot be used in combat, and if they were, they would require a permit that would not be granted,” she stated.

No mortars have been sent from Canadian manufacturers to Israel—directly or indirectly—since before the suspension of permits, she noted.

In the July 29 report, researchers from four NGOs—including World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, and Independent Jewish Voices—uncovered data from the Israel Tax Authority showing Canadian goods labeled as military weapon parts and ammunition continuing to enter Israel.

At a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Yara Shoufani of the Palestinian Youth Movement said the findings reveal Canada’s ongoing material support for Israel despite government denials.

The activists also obtained commercial shipping documents confirming the transfer of ammunition and military equipment from Canadian companies to Israel.

READ: ‘America First’ clashes with ‘Israel First’ as Trump threatens Canada over Palestine recognition

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Continue ReadingNo arms to Israel: Canada reaffirms Gaza arms ban

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Many ex-council homes are now rented privately to tenants on housing benefit that costs taxpayers £20bn a year. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian

Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’

Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis.

In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to their tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality.

Describing it as one of the “largest giveaways in UK history”, it said the sale of 1.9m council homes in England had contributed to a situation where one in six private tenants in England now rents a former local authority home.

…

Calculating the “opportunity cost” of the sales, Common Wealth said the former council homes were now worth an estimated £430bn after taking account of inflation and the surge in property prices since 1980.

Of this sum, the thinktank said £194bn represented the value that was effectively given away when the homes were sold at a discount. Between the years 1980-81 and 2023-24, the discount averaged 43% on the prevailing market price.

…

See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-housing-crisis-cost-taxpayers-common-weath-report

Continue ReadingRight to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

Revealed: Yorkshire Water boss was paid extra £1.3m via offshore parent firm

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/03/yorkshire-water-boss-pay-offshore-parent-company

Nicola Shaw received remuneration from Kelda Holdings as well as Yorkshire Water. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

Company says extra payments relating to work for Kelda Holdings were covered by shareholders not billpayers

The boss of Yorkshire Water, one of Britain’s biggest water suppliers, has received £1.3m in previously undisclosed extra pay since 2023 via an offshore parent company, the Guardian can reveal.

Nicola Shaw received £660,000 from Yorkshire Water’s Jersey-registered parent company, Kelda Holdings, in the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 financial years. The size of the fees was not disclosed in the annual report of the regulated subsidiary, Yorkshire Water Services.

The utility company at first refused to detail the pay Kelda Holdings had awarded Shaw, saying the parent company was a “private entity registered in Jersey and subject to separate disclosure frameworks”. Only after the Guardian raised questions about the ability of MPs and bill payers to scrutinise the pay awarded did the company reveal the amount of the two payments.

…

Gary Carter, the national officer for GMB, a union representing water workers, said: “This is another case of water companies not listening to the outrage and concerns of the public over the payment of unjustifiable salaries.

“The fact that this salary is hidden and not transparent just further undermines the reputation of water companies. This sort of behaviour has got to end.”

…

Read the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/03/yorkshire-water-boss-pay-offshore-parent-company

April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
Continue ReadingRevealed: Yorkshire Water boss was paid extra £1.3m via offshore parent firm