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Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini (L) is welcomed by Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo on May 27, 2025. [Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Wednesday that his country will work to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is currently besieged by Israel.
The Japanese Prime Minister’s office said in a statement that Ishiba received the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, in Tokyo.
Ishiba stressed “Creating an environment in which aid is possible is extremely important,” expressing his respect for UNRWA’s support for Palestinian refugees.
Lazzarini, in turn, expressed his gratitude to Ishiba for the Japanese government’s efforts to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The two sides reiterated their commitment to continuing cooperation to support Palestinian refugees.
According to the UN, through deliberate starvation in order to achieve forced displacement, Israel has pushed 2.4 million Palestinians to the brink of famine by closing the Gaza Strip’s crossings to humanitarian aid, particularly food, since 2 March.
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UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Ehud Olmert in May 2025. His opinion piece in Haaretz says the Israeli government’s war has ‘no chances of success’. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP
Leader from 2006 to 2009 says Palestinian victims are at ‘monstrous proportions’ and Netanyahu heads a ‘criminal gang’
The former prime minister of Israel Ehud Olmert has said Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, and that “thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed, as well as many Israeli soldiers”.
Olmert, who was the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, wrote in an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper and website Haaretz that “the government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success”.
He added: “Never since its establishment has the state of Israel waged such a war … The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.
The former Israeli PM and former member of Likud, the same party as Netanyahu, wrote that the “pointless victims among the Palestinian population” were reaching “monstrous proportions” in recent weeks.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Lord Ian Austin said the UK was still ‘open for business’ with Israel despite suspending trade talks (Image: @ukinisrael, via Twitter/X)
THE UK Government’s trade envoy to Israel has visited the country to “promote trade”, just days after Labour said they were calling off negotiations with the Israeli government on a new free trade deal.
Lord Ian Austin was pictured in Haifa in northern Israel visiting various projects, where he said the Government would continue to “[encourage] British businesses to export to Israel and Israeli businesses to invest in the UK”.
On Monday, the British embassy in Israel shared an image of Austin and wrote: “Great to welcome @LordIanAustin to Haifa!
“In a day full of innovation by the Carmel, the UK Trade Envoy to Israel visited the cutting-edge Customs Scanning Centre, Haifa Bayport, the Haifa–Nazareth Light Rail project, and the Technion – witnessing [Great Britain flag emoji, Israel flag emoji] cooperation at every stop.”
In a day full of innovation by the Carmel, the UK Trade Envoy to Israel visited the cutting-edge Customs Scanning Centre, Haifa Bayport, the Haifa–Nazareth Light Rail project, and the Technion – witnessing 🇬🇧–🇮🇱 cooperation at every stop pic.twitter.com/v6Rk7BZrgU
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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People carrying an inflatable of a bomb with the words “End arms trade with Israel” passing by the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, Spain on 5 October 2024 [Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images]
The Spanish parliament decided Tuesday to accelerate the passage of an arms embargo bill against Israel, according to media reports, Anadolu Agency said.
The Sumar, Podemos, Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), Basque EH Bildu and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) parties submitted a petition to the Congressional Bureau demanding the urgent procession of the bill, said the El Mundo newspaper.
The request, also supported by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party, was approved, halving the timeline and accelerating the process.
It came after parliament passed a non-binding motion on May 20 that urged the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel in response to its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
The motion, introduced by the leftist Sumar alliance, part of the ruling coalition, along with opposition parties Podemos and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), was approved in a 176-171 vote.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
A Palestinian boy is seen at the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on May 26, 2025. (Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“They call places safe, then attack them,” said one Palestinian aid worker. “I’d rather stay home with my family and face whatever comes, at least we all die together, rather than be separated.”
A United Nations group said Tuesday that Israel’s renewed ground offensive and continued airstrikes in the Gaza Strip displaced roughly 180,000 Palestinians in just 10 days this month, leaving desperate, starving families with nowhere to turn as Israeli forces target shelters and other civilian infrastructure.
The estimate from the International Organization for Migration’s Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster came a day after the Israeli military bombed a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, killing dozens.
CCCM said Tuesday that direct attacks on shelters for displaced people “have become common” in recent weeks as Israeli forces have moved ahead with Operation Gideon’s Chariots, an expansion of Israel’s devastating assault on the besieged Palestinian enclave. The official death toll from Israel’s assault, which began in the wake of a Hamas-led attack in October 2023, surpassed 54,000 on Tuesday.
“Since the collapse of the cease-fire on 18 March, nearly 616,000 people have been displaced—multiple times, some as many as 10,” said the U.N. group. “During the cease-fire, over half a million people went back to their homes, mostly in the north, to try to rebuild their lives. That fragile progress has now been reversed, as intensified military operations are once again displacing families away from the areas they had only recently returned to.”
Citing humanitarian partners on the ground, CCCM noted that roughly 80% of the Gaza Strip is either under a displacement order or marked as a “no-go” zone, making most of the enclave’s population vulnerable to Israel’s ground and aerial onslaught.
“My sibling died in a ‘safe’ zone after they bombed it,” one Palestinian aid worker told CCCM. “They call places safe, then attack them. I’d rather stay home with my family and face whatever comes, at least we all die together, rather than be separated.”
CCCM also raised alarm over a newly launched aid scheme led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organization with ties to the U.S. and Israeli governments.
“These arrangements risk circumventing established humanitarian coordination mechanisms, undermining humanitarian principles, and putting civilians at further risk by promoting displacement without essential protection or adequate access to lifesaving services,” the U.N. organization said.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor echoed that warning, saying in a statement that “all available information about the new Israeli mechanism clearly indicates that it is designed as a tool of coercive control over the Gaza Strip’s civilian population.”
“It limits families to just one aid parcel per week under highly restrictive security conditions, thus violating the principles of non-discrimination, adequacy, and continuity in humanitarian aid,” the group said. “Such limited distribution is not a genuine humanitarian response, but a deliberate policy aimed at barely managing hunger, rather than actually alleviating it.”
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAVote For Genocide Vote Labour.
