The UK has the worst safety net for the unemployed in north-west Europe
Viewers have taken issue with a statement by Tory MP Chris Philp who claimed that the UK’s benefits system is ‘very generous’, in an interview this morning.
Speaking to Sky News on the steep rise of shoplifting, the Policing Minister was asked if he had any sympathy for people stealing for food. He argued that there was “no excuse” because the UK’s benefits system is “very generous”.
Philp said: “We have a very generous benefits system, we’re spending well over £100 billion on working-age benefits, they went up by 10% in April this year they’ll go up by another 6 or 7%. National Minimum Wage has just gone up by around 10%. There is no excuse at all for any criminal activity, including shoplifting.”
However, people were not impressed at being told by a politician, who’s current net worth is around £3 million, that the benefits system is ‘very generous’. One X user responded: “Here is a challenge for Chris Philp – try living on ‘generous’ UK benefits for a month and then report back.”
Another wrote: “Clearly living in his own bubble. How disconnected from reality. The rental prices, bills have risen to unmanageable levels, the benefit system is completely inadequate.”
Original article republished from Middle East Monitor under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
An aerial view of makeshift tents of Palestinian families, who left their homes and took refuge in Rafah city due to ongoing Israeli attacks in Rafah, Gaza on January 01, 2024 [Mohammed Fayq – Anadolu Agency]
A Saudi national fundraising campaign to provide aid for the people of Gaza has, so far, raised more than SR600 million ($160 million), organisers said on Monday, Arab News reports.
According to the report, the initiative was launched on 2 November, 2023 by Saudi aid agency, KSrelief, through the Sahem platform for charitable donations, in line with directives from King Salman and Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman.
The report says the platform called Sahem, especially in the context of the Gaza war, stands as a remarkable example of how digital platforms can mobilise support and resources for humanitarian causes.
The delivery of the aid, which includes 24 tons of food, medical and shelter supplies, is being coordinated by KSrelief to help Palestinians affected by the conflict within the Gaza Strip, the report added.
Search and rescue teams and civilians gather among the rubble of buildings in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on December 1, 2023. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Anything other than sustained peace and at-scale emergency aid will mean catastrophe for the children of Gaza,” said a UNICEF spokesperson.
Israel resumed its assault on the Gaza Strip Friday morning just minutes after the pause with Hamas officially expired, ending a fragile seven-day truce that created conditions for the release of hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian captives and allowed additional—but still inadequate—humanitarian aid to enter the besieged territory.
Gaza’s health ministry said that Israel’s post-pause airstrikes killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens more, hitting a multi-story residential building and other civilian infrastructure in the southern part of the strip, where many Gazans sought refuge as Israeli forces targeted the north in earlier stages of its attack.
The Associated Press reported that Israeli forces “dropped leaflets over parts of southern Gaza urging people to leave their homes, suggesting it was preparing to widen its offensive.”
“The Israeli military also released a map carving up the Gaza Strip into hundreds of numbered parcels, and asked residents to learn the number associated with their location in case of an eventual evacuation,” AP added. “It said the map would eventually be interactive, but it was not immediately clear how Palestinians would be updated on their designated parcel numbers and calls for evacuation.”
Our aid workers in Gaza are again ordered to flee from the bombardments. Now from Khan Yunis to overcrowded Rafah. Once again, nowhere in Gaza is safe for the 2.3 million civilians who are trapped there https://t.co/NXuLyUyrYS
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, toldAgence France-Presse that the resumption of bombing drags Gazans “back to the nightmarish situation they were in before the truce took place,” with millions of people in desperate need of food, medicine, clean water, and sanitary living conditions.
“People are at a breaking point, hospitals are at a breaking point, the whole Gaza Strip is in a very precarious state,” said Mardini. “There is nowhere safe to go for civilians. We have seen in the hospitals where our teams have been working, that over the past days, hundreds of severely injured people have arrived. The influx of severely wounded outpaced the real capacity of hospitals to absorb and treat the wounded, so there is a massive challenge.”
James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), warned Friday that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is so perilous that anything other than sustained peace and at-scale emergency aid will mean catastrophe for the children of Gaza.”
“To accept the sacrifice of the children in Gaza is humanity giving up,” said Elder. “This is our last chance, before we delve into seeking to explain yet another utterly avoidable tragedy.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is clinging to his job amid plummeting approval ratings, had pledged to continue assailing Gaza following the end of the truce, which marked the first pause in fighting since the war began in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in early October.
The Financial Times reported Friday that Israel’s government is preparing for a war that “will stretch for a year or more, with the most intensive phase of the ground offensive continuing into early 2024.”
“The multi-phase strategy envisages Israeli forces, who are garrisoned inside north Gaza, making an imminent push deep into the south of the besieged Palestinian enclave,” FT reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the planning. “The goals include killing the three top Hamas leaders—Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa—while securing ‘a decisive’ military victory against the group’s 24 battalions and underground tunnel network and destroying its ‘governing capability in Gaza.’”
An investigation published Thursday by +972 Magazine and Local Call found that Israeli forces have used “expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets” and “the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties,” as well as “an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever,” to wage its devastating war on Gaza, killing more than 14,500 people in less than two months and displacing 70% of the territory’s population.
In one case that anonymous Israeli sources described to the two outlets, Israel’s military command “knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander.”
“Another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called ‘Habsora’ (‘The Gospel’), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can ‘generate’ targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible,” +972 and Local Call found. “This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a ‘mass assassination factory.’”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly urged Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza during a meeting with the nation’s leaders on Thursday, but the Israeli government has repeatedly brushed aside public and private concerns expressed by the Biden administration, which continues to provide unconditional support for the assault.
“Blinken suggested that his call for protecting Palestinian civilians had reached receptive ears, at least in general terms,” The New York Times reported. “He did not cite any specific commitments by Israel, however.”
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The State Department and USAID staffers denounced the president’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza, which have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians.
One hundred U.S. foreign service officials have signed a “scathing” internal memo blasting President Joe Biden’s “unwillingness to de-escalate” Israel’s assault on Gaza and his failure to stop Israeli “war crimes and/or crimes against humanity” in the embattled Palestinian enclave.
Axios reported Monday that the five-pageinternal dissent memo was signed by officials at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The memo was reportedly organized by Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Middle East Affairs who earlier this month accused Biden of being “complicit in genocide” as Israeli forces indiscriminately bombarded the Gaza strip by air, land, and sea—killing thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children.
“Members of the White House and [the U.S. National Security Council] displayed a clear disregard for the lives of Palestinians, a documented unwillingness to de-escalate, and, even prior to October 7, a reckless lack of strategic foresight,” the memo states.
The missive accuses Biden of “disregarding the lives of Palestinians,” over 40,000 of whom have been killed, wounded, or gone missing since Israel launched its retaliatory war that has also displaced over 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel’s relentless attacks and its cutting off of electricity, food, and fuel supplies to the already besieged territory “all constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law,” the memo asserts. “Yet we have failed to reassess our posture towards Israel. We doubled down on our unwavering military assistance to the [Israeli government] without clear or actionable red lines.”
More unprecedented dissent from within the State Department: An internal State Department dissent memo accuses President Biden of "spreading misinformation" and says that Israel is committing "war crimes" in Gaza https://t.co/Cm52hgAadr
Responding to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, Biden has repeatedly proclaimed his “unwavering” support for Israel and requested another $14 billion in U.S. armed assistance to the key Middle East ally—which already receives nearly $4 billion from Washington annually.
The president has dismissed calls to cut or place conditions on U.S. aid, while Biden administration officials have been derided for claiming they have no leverage over Israel.
Biden has also rebuffed widespread and growing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, instead advocating for a so-called “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to flee and aid to enter the strip.
The signers of the memo denounce Biden for “questioning the number of deaths” in Gaza by saying he had “no confidence” in Palestinian health officials’ casualty reports—figures deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, international and Israeli mainstream media, and even the State Department.
Biden was accused of “genocidal denial” following his remarks. Directly contradicting the president, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned last week that the death toll in Gaza may be “even higher” than reported, as thousands of bodies lie unrecovered beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
The memo’s signers also accused the president of “spreading misinformation” about the war.
Axios said the memo was sent to the State Department’s policy office on November 3 through the official dissent channel established during the Vietnam War era to allow diplomats to express their disapproval of U.S. policies and practices. Dissent memos are meant to stay within the agency, but are sometimes leaked to the public.
Multiple dissent memos about the Gaza war are currently being circulated within the State Department, according toPolitico.
A State Department spokesperson told Axios that the agency “is proud there is an established procedure for employees to articulate policy disagreements directly to the attention of senior department leaders without fear of retribution.”
“We understand—we expect, we appreciate—that different people working in this department have different beliefs about what United States policy should be,” the spokesperson added.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue.”
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk declared Wednesday that “the collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts… to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.”
Israel’s monthlong war on Gaza has killed over 10,500 Palestinians, wounded thousands more, displaced 70% of the strip’s 2.3 million residents, and decimated civilian infrastructure, including homes, religious buildings, and hospitals.
Türk’s comments came after he visited the Rafah border crossing that connects Egypt to Gaza, which he described as “the gates to a living nightmare—a nightmare where people have been suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity and fuel.”
Long before October 7, when a Hamas-led attack killed over 1,400 Israelis and triggered Israel’s retaliation, Gaza was “described as the world’s biggest open-air prison… under a 56-year occupation and a 16-year blockade by Israel,” he highlighted.
“Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”
The U.N. rights chief also stressed that “the atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups… were heinous, brutal, and shocking. They were war crimes—as is the continued holding of hostages.” Israeli officials say there are about 240 hostages.
“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue,” he warned. “Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”
Türk emphasized that “parties to the conflict have the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects,” and as an occupying power, Israel is required “to ensure a maximum of basic necessities of life can reach all who need it.”
“I call—as a matter of urgency—for the parties now to agree [to] a cease-fire on the basis of three critical human rights imperatives: We need urgent delivery of massive levels of humanitarian aid, throughout Gaza,” he declared.
The official also called for all hostages to be freed without condition and said that “crucially, we need to enable the political space to implement a durable end to the occupation, based on the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination and their legitimate security interests.”
People in #Gaza are suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, food, electricity & fuel. @volker_turk calls on parties to agree to a ceasefire on the basis of key human rights imperatives: https://t.co/5z0WW6Rdjupic.twitter.com/mdde76rapL
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres—who has also been pushing for a cease-fire—called out Israel’s aerial and ground operations for their impact on civilians during a Reuters conference on Wednesday.
“There are violations by Hamas when they have human shields. But when one looks at the number of civilians that were killed with the military operations, there is something that is clearly wrong,” he said.
“We have in a few days in Gaza thousands and thousands of children killed, which means there is also something clearly wrong in the way military operations are being done,” the U.N. leader added.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Israeli war against Hamas has killed over 4,300 children.
“It is also important to make Israel understand that it is against the interests of Israel to see every day the terrible image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said. “That doesn’t help Israel in relation to the global public opinion.”
While French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to hold a Gaza-focused “humanitarian conference” in Paris on Thursday, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to participate in the event.
Ahead of the conference, 13 human rights and relief groups called on attendees “to do everything in their power to achieve an immediate cease-fire; take concrete steps to free civilian hostages and protect all civilian populations; and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and respect for international humanitarian law.”
Among them was Amnesty International—which, over the past month, has compiled “damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families.” Some global experts and critics have demanded action from the International Criminal Court on “escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
In a resignation letter to Türk last month, Craig Mokhiber, who was serving as the New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned Israel’s war as “a textbook case of genocide.”
“In the immediate term,” Mokhiber wrote, “we must work for an immediate cease-fire and an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.’s political offices.”
