Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to business leaders during a reception at EY headquarters ahead of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 21, 2025
LEADING Scottish medics have joined more than 500 healthcare professionals from across Britain demanding the Prime Minister act to secure the release of a Palestinian doctor and his colleagues abducted by Israeli forces.
Head of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr Abu Safiya was taken from its ruins in December 2024 and has since been held with peers without charge in conditions human rights lawyers have described as inhumane.
In an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, the medics argue that the situation has become a “matter of life and death,” with the Israeli state not only facing accusations of organ harvesting from deceased detainees, but proposals currently before the Knesset which would permit the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism charges in its military courts.
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.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
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6-year-old Misk al-Madhoun, who weighing only 4 kilograms, struggle with both brain atrophy and severe malnutrition caused by hunger in Gaza City, Gaza on July 31, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Friday urged the international community to act swiftly to prevent the mass death of children in the Gaza Strip, where conditions continue to deteriorate amid Israel’s ongoing war, Anadolu reports.
“Today, I want to keep the focus on Gaza, because it’s in Gaza where the suffering is most acute and where children are dying at an unprecedented rate.
“We are at a crossroads, and the choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die,” Ted Chaiban, UNICEF deputy executive director, said at a briefing on his recent travel to the Middle East.
Visiting both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including both Gaza and the West Bank, Chaiban said this was his fourth visit to Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
“You see the images on the news, and you know what has happened, but it’s still shocking when you’re there; the marks of deep suffering and hunger are visible on the faces of families and children,” he said.
Over 18,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, he underlined.
“Gaza now faces a grave risk of famine. … One in three people in Gaza are going days without food, and the malnutrition indicator has exceeded the famine threshold, with global acute malnutrition now at over 16.5%. Today, more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition,” he added.
What is happening on the ground is “inhumane,” he said, adding that what children need from all communities is a sustained ceasefire and a political way forward.
When asked whether he sees any difference after more and more countries are airdropping aid into Gaza, Chaiban said: “Look, at this stage, every modality needs to be used, every gate, every route, every modality, but airdrops cannot replace the volume and the scale that convoys by road can achieve.”
Chaiban stressed that it is needed to move back towards a volume of around 500 trucks a day through all routes, and that includes both humanitarian and commercial aid.
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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.UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREUK 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.
Five-month-old Suwar Ashur, one of hundreds of children diagnosed with malnutrition, is being treated at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on May 1, 2025. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The two-month-long siege is a “clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable.”
“This is genocide in action,” said one official with Amnesty International on Friday, referring to Israel’s two-month humanitarian blockade in Gaza which has resulted in death, starvation, and suffering on a nearly unimaginable scale.
The human rights group is demanding that Israel’s allies, including the United States, take immediate action to ensure the Israeli government lifts the total aid blockade that’s plunged the enclave into what the United Nations has called “mass starvation,” with food supplies rapidly dwindling and thousands of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition.
“The international community must not continue to stand by as Israel perpetrates these atrocities with impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns.
After a brief cease-fire, Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of commercial goods and aid into Gaza on March 2 and cut off power to the enclave’s desalination plant, after it had been briefly reconnected to electricity. The plant’s blackout has worsened water scarcity that’s plagued Gaza for all of Israel’s 17-year blockade and has left some Palestinians resorting to drinking seawater.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the agency is in “constant contact” with Israeli authorities as it advocates for the reopening of border crossings.
“We don’t ask if food is nutritious or not, if it’s fresh or good; that’ a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don’t want my child to die hungry.”
“Food stocks have now mainly run out, water access has become impossible,” Olga Cherevko said, leaving children “who have been deprived of their childhood for many months… rummaging through piles of trash” in search of food and combustible material to burn for cooking, due to rapidly shrinking supplies of fuel.
“Gaza is inching closer to running on empty,” said Cherevko.
"The international community has a choice – to keep scrolling through the grisly images of Gaza being suffocated and starved or muster the courage and the moral fiber to make decisions that would break this merciless blockade."
Amnesty interviewed 35 internally displaced people about the forced starvation crisis facing Gaza, which began again shortly before Israel resumed its bombardment of the enclave on March 18—killing at least 2,325 people including 820 children since then.
With the severe food scarcity being “exploited by individuals hoarding or looting supplies, selling them at extortionate prices,” according to Amnesty, most Palestinians are relying on overcrowded charity kitchens where they can wait for hours each day for just one meal.
“We don’t ask if food is nutritious or not, if it’s fresh or good; that’ a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children. I don’t want my child to die hungry,” one parent told the aid group.
Another described sending their son to wait in line for drinking water “for hours and he had to walk long distances.”
“With the relentless bombardment and danger lurking everywhere, you don’t know,” said the parent. “You may send your child to bring water only for him to return in a body bag. Every day is like this here.”
OCHA has reported that 92% of infants and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are not meeting their nutrient requirements, while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released a statement Friday warning that malnutrition among children is on the rise across the enclave.
“More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year,” said Catherine Russell, executive director UNICEF. “Hundreds more children in desperate need of treatment are not able to access it due to the insecurity and displacement.”
“For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness, and death—nothing can justify this,” Russell added.
One doctor at Al-Rantissi pediatric hospital in Gaza City told Amnesty that healthcare workers have observed “the impact of the hunger on the children who come here to receive treatment… You recommend that the parent give the child specific attention, specific food, and you know that what you are recommending is an impossibility.”
The two-month mark of the current siege came as the International Court of Justice held public hearings this week on Israel’s humanitarian obligations in Gaza. The ICJ has previously ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave.
Amnesty argued that the “cruel and inhumane siege” offers “further evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza.”
“Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction,” Erika Guevara Rosas said. “For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable.”
Mohamad Safa, CEO and representative to the U.N. for the non-governmental organization Patriotic Vision, emphasized that the crisis that is gripping Gaza is “not famine,” but rather “forced starvation.”
“”Forced starvation is an act of genocide,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, repeated her call for an arms embargo on Israel, which counts the U.S. as the largest international funder of its military.
“The government of Israel is starving Gaza to death,” said Tlaib. “It’s a war crime to use starvation as a weapon. The only way to end this genocide is with an arms embargo. Time for my colleagues to end their silence.”
Guevara Rosas accused the international community, especially Israel’s allies, of “contemptible failure to live up to their legal responsibilities to prevent and bring an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
“These states’ decades of inaction helped establish pervasive impunity for Israel’s persistent violations and it is now exacting an unprecedented toll of death, destruction, and suffering on Palestinians,” said Guevara Rosas. “States must take action to render Israel’s violations against Palestinians politically, diplomatically, and economically unsustainable—the siege on Gaza must end now.”
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support.
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Palestinians wait in long queues to receive pots of food as they face food crisis following the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which lasted for 42 days, Israel stopped all humanitarian aid supplies from entering the Gaza Strip at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza Strip on March 11, 2025 [Mahmoud İssa/Anadolu Agency]
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned Israel’s “use of aid as a tool of war in Gaza.”
In a statement released yesterday, the medical organisation said it “strongly condemns” the Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip, which deprives Palestinian civilians of basic services and vital supplies, “including access to water by cutting electricity”.
Israel is using “collective punishment” and has “instrumentalised humanitarian needs by using it as a bargaining chip” during a period when negotiations are due to be held on the second phase of the ceasefire deal.
“Israeli authorities are yet again normalising the use of aid as a negotiation tool. This is outrageous. Humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip in war,” said Myriam Laaroussi, MSF emergency coordinator. “The blockade on all supplies is inevitably hurting hundreds of thousands of people and is having deadly consequences.”
“A ceasefire without scaling up humanitarian aid is contradictory,” she warned, adding that the group’s hands would be tied if fuel isn’t allowed into the enclave.
MSF called on “Israeli authorities to respect international humanitarian law and uphold its responsibilities as an occupying power, and to end this inhumane blockade of the Strip.”
Adding that Israel’s allies, who have “ignored this grave violation of international humanitarian law” must “refrain from normalising such actions” and act “to prevent Gaza from plunging further into devastation.”
On 2 March, when the ceasefire deal was due to go into its second phase, Israel announced that it had closed all crossings into Gaza, besieging the devastated Strip. One week later it cut the electricity supply to Gaza’s last remaining desalination plant leaving Palestinians with no way to access clean water.
Critics have warned that Israel is trying to force Palestinians to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal, see the release of the Israeli captives held in Gaza in return for no concessions from the occupation state. It would then return to bombing the enclave in an effort to force Palestinians out of it.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to business leaders during a reception at EY headquarters ahead of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 21, 2025
