World
Access to Aid in Gaza Was Dire. Now, It’s Worse.
The flow of aid into Gaza has shrunk so much in May that humanitarian officials say their operations are at risk of shutting down, and that the threat of widespread starvation is more acute than ever.
Aid trucks entering Gaza fall far short of meeting need
The entry of aid trucks through Gaza’s southern crossings, where most aid has arrived since the war began, has nearly ground to a halt since Israel expanded its fighting in the southern city of Rafah. In northern Gaza, new entry points have enabled small amounts of critical aid to reach those who have been most at risk of famine for months. But that aid is insufficient to support the Gazan population, and most cannot reach the central and southern areas, where a majority of people are newly displaced by the war.
A ruling issued by the International Court of Justice on Friday appeared to order Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah, although at least some of the court’s judges said limited operations could continue despite the decision. The ruling made explicit note of the “spread of famine and starvation” in Gaza and emphasized the need for “the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”
Last month, Israel had pledged to increase the aid it allowed into Gaza after the killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers in an attack by Israeli forces drew international outrage. Israel’s strict controls on aid and the challenge of distributing it within the enclave had already created catastrophic levels of hunger.
Under pressure from President Biden, Israeli officials began to bring additional aid through the port of Ashdod and opened the Erez crossing in the north, which Israel had closed after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. In coordination with Israel, the U.S. military built a temporary pier to bring in aid by sea, a supplement to key land routes in the south.
But in early May, Israel expanded its military operation in southern Gaza after a Hamas rocket attack killed four soldiers near a crossing at Kerem Shalom. Israel closed that crossing as well as the Rafah crossing, where a majority of aid had been coming in. Nearly 300 aid trucks had crossed there in a single day just before the incursion.
“It was a record for us since the outbreak of the war,” said Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the United Nations aid office in Rafah. “We were kind of saying, ‘OK, well, maybe we’re getting to where we need to be.’ And then boom, suddenly it’s gone.”
Aid entrypoint
Current status
Rafah crossing
The crossing remains closed after it was seized and shut down by Israel during its incursion into Rafah.
Kerem Shalom crossing
Israel reopened this southern crossing on May 8, but a very limited amount of aid and fuel, and almost no medical supplies, have entered there since.
Erez and Erez West crossings
More aid has come through these crossings, which have been open since early May, than through others since May 8, but the amounts satisfy just a fraction of the overall need.
U.S.-built aid pier
The U.N. said on Wednesday that about 60 trucks’ worth of food has been delivered to warehouses via the pier, less than the U.S. military’s goal. Aid groups temporarily suspended distribution last week after security issues.
Airdrops
A few trucks’ worth of aid enters by air sporadically.
Israel reopened Kerem Shalom on May 8, but aid workers from multiple organizations have said the vital entry point remains functionally closed, with a daily average of just eight aid trucks entering. One reason is that Egypt has refused to allow trucks from the closed Rafah crossing to continue on to Kerem Shalom.
Mr. Biden and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt agreed on Friday to send aid and fuel to Kerem Shalom until the Rafah border crossing could be reopened. On Sunday, 126 trucks carrying food and other aid from Egypt reached that crossing, according to a statement by the Israeli military. The U.N. distribution trucks that made it to Kerem Shalom to pick up the Egyptian aid were forced to evacuate the crossing because of a security issue, said Sam Rose, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA. Officials including Mr. Rose said the aid had not made it past the crossing as of Sunday.
Scott Anderson, a senior official at UNRWA, and Mr. Petropoulos have said that the crossing area is still an active military zone and that safety and logistical challenges can hold up aid that arrives at the crossing and prevent it from being immediately collected and distributed. An Israeli airstrike on a makeshift tent camp in Rafah killed at least 45 people on Sunday night, according to the Gaza health ministry. The Israeli military said the strike was aimed at a Hamas compound.
Empty trucks coming from inside Gaza en route to load aid at Kerem Shalom often sit in hours-long waits behind commercial trucks carrying goods to sell in Gaza, which officials say number more than 100 or 200 per day. While humanitarian groups say they welcome the arrival of commercial supplies, most people inside Gaza cannot afford them, and the shipments may not include basic necessities.
Getting aid to people in Gaza is also difficult because Israel’s expanded operations in the south and north have forced nearly a million people to flee to areas with little shelter, food or water on the coast or among the rubble in more central regions.
Before the Rafah operation, most people were sheltering in the areas where a majority of the aid was coming in. But now, new entry points in the north — the U.S. pier, and a new crossing called Erez West — are beset with problems. They bring in too little aid to sustain everyone and are located far from the largest clusters of people.
Before the Rafah operation
April 23 through May 6After the Rafah operation
May 7 through May 20
The distribution of the aid that does make it through each crossing also poses significant challenges. Israel’s recent evacuation orders in parts of Rafah and northern Gaza have made many aid agency warehouses unreachable and travel more dangerous. UNRWA announced on May 21 that it had suspended distribution in Rafah, citing security issues, supply shortages and an inability to access its warehouse.
Without consistent, predictable deliveries of aid, many trucks do not make it far through desperate crowds. For instance, on May 18, the World Food Program reported that 11 of 16 trucks were looted after leaving the U.S. pier.
An Israeli military road and checkpoint in the north, which bisects the enclave and prevented the easy movement of aid from the south to the north earlier in the war, is likely to create a similar problem for aid moving in the opposite direction, according to Mr. Petropoulos.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency coordinating aid delivery, has said that increasing the amount of aid going into Gaza remains a priority. It reports daily that it has inspected hundreds of trucks and coordinated their transfer to border crossings, though the figures are often higher than those reported by aid organizations, which track the number of trucks that have collected goods for entry into Gaza and exclude trucks carrying commercial goods.
Neither set of figures accounts for difficulties in distribution that can prevent aid from getting to Gazan civilians. Israel says enough aid is entering Gaza and has blamed aid groups for not distributing it faster to civilians — a characterization the aid groups dispute, saying Israeli forces have made distribution extremely difficult.
Aid organizations have also warned that they will be unable to deliver supplies to anyone if they run out of fuel, and that already inadequate amounts of safe water supplies will disappear. At least 200,000 liters of fuel are needed daily, according to Mr. Anderson of UNRWA. But just a quarter of that amount arrives on average each day since the closure of Rafah crossing, according to U.N. data.
“The fuel limitation means that we often have to choose: Do we keep the generators running at the hospital, the bakery or the sewage plant?” Mr. Anderson said.
Methodology
Daily truck counts were compiled from multiple sources, including the U.N. dashboard for southern border crossings, meeting minutes from the inter-agency Logistics Cluster, World Food Program reports and updates from COGAT, the Israeli military agency coordinating aid delivery. The counts were cross-checked with multi-date aid truck totals from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Office of the Spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General. Daily averages were calculated for the northern crossings from May 12 to May 15, as only a total count for that span of dates was available. Trucks carrying commercial goods are excluded.
Maps compare aid truck inflows over the two weeks before the Rafah operation and the two weeks after. Population estimates are based on reports by the United Nations, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and preliminary, internal estimates from aid organizations in Gaza. Estimates are based on satellite imagery analysis, field observations and shelter registrations, and are subject to change.
World
Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report
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Some landlords in England are apparently advertising “Muslim-only” apartments online, according to a local media report.
An investigation by The Telegraph found that alleged listings posted in London on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram feature phrases such as “only for Muslims,” “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls,” and “Muslims preferred.”
Other ads appeal to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers, while some job vacancies on the platforms are advertised for men only.
Some listings specify “Hindu only,” in addition to posts that likely use religious subtext by stating: “The house should be alcohol and smoke-free.”
IS MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST PUSH FOR RENT CONTROLS ABOUT TO WRECK THE NEW YORK CITY HOUSING MARKET?
On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” “one double room is available for Muslims,” and “suitable for Punjabi boy.” A Meta spokesman told Fox News Digital that Facebook then removed the company’s page “for violating the platform’s policies on discriminatory practices.”
Apartment buildings in Westminster, London, U.K. (John Keeble/Getty Images)
The ads run afoul of Britain’s Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief, race and other protected characteristics.
“These adverts are disgusting and anti-British. It goes without saying that there would be a national outrage if the tables were turned,” Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economic spokesman, told The Telegraph. “All forms of racism are unacceptable, and no religious group should get a special exemption to discriminate in this way.”
Houses and properties line Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, U.K. Some landlords in the city are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across the city, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. (Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)
One landlord told The Telegraph to “go away” when asked about an ad for a “Muslims only” room for $1,150, and whether it was available to renters of other faiths.
A spokesperson for Gumtree told the newspaper that the company has clear policies in place that prohibit unlawful discrimination.
On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“We take reports of inappropriate listings very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The ads referenced appear to relate to private rooms within shared homes, where existing occupants may express preferences about who they live with. This is different from renting out an entire property, which is subject to stricter rules under the Equality Act.”
Telegram did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
World
Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?
Europe’s critical raw materials crisis has a partial answer sitting in the waste stream — but the continent has been too slow to see it.
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Dorota Włoch, CEO of Eneris Surowce, was direct: recycling is no longer optional.
Unlike plastics, metals can be recovered and reused indefinitely, making urban mining — the recovery of raw materials from existing products and waste — increasingly valuable, particularly for batteries.
“From recycling, we recover metallic aluminium and so-called black mass, which is a concentrate of metals, mainly cobalt-nickel. These are some of the most valuable battery metals. And batteries are crucial today, not only in the automotive sector, but also in storing energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar,” she said.
‘Europe is 25 years late’
Włoch put the scale of the problem plainly. “Deposits are critical — any machine can be bought, but natural resources are not. They are non-transferable and non-renewable. If we use them, they simply disappear,” she said.
Europe’s belated recognition of that reality has cost it dearly.
“The regulation of critical raw materials came 25 years after other regions of the world had invested heavily in deposits. Europe was too passive. Today we are catching up, but the regulations are often so demanding that countries like Poland have difficulty implementing them.”
Who benefits most from extraction?
Poland holds significant reserves of raw materials critical to the modern economy, such as copper, coking coal, nickel, platinum group metals, helium, rhenium, lead and silver.
But the minerals needed most for the energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt and graphite, exist only in limited quantities, forcing imports.
Arkadiusz Kustra, dean of the faculty of civil engineering and resource management at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, told a panel at the European Economic Congress that awareness of the full supply chain, and who profits from it, was now essential.
He pointed to Serbia as a case study.
“Serbia has lithium deposits and is already in talks with Mercedes or Stellantis,” he said. Belgrade is using that leverage to attract investment in battery factories and car plants, keeping more of the value chain at home.
The goal, Kustra argued, should be regional supply chains that retain added value locally.
“You can earn the least at the beginning and the most from the end customer,” he said.
The bigger obstacle is Chinese dominance.
“Margins in critical raw materials largely go to the Chinese, who control more than 90% of processing and trading, even though they do not own most of the deposits,” he said.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo — among the world’s most resource-rich countries — Chinese entities control around 90% of deposits.
The panel also pointed to growing interest in new supply partnerships, with Poland eyeing assets in the Congo region and the Americas.
World
Israeli Strikes Kill a Journalist and Injure Another in Lebanon
Israeli strikes killed one journalist and wounded another in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, rattling a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said the Israeli military had targeted the journalists in the town of Tayri, where they took shelter in a nearby house after an airstrike struck a vehicle in front of the car they were traveling in. About an hour and a half later, a second strike hit the house they were hiding in, according to a statement by a Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which employed the journalist who was killed.
The Lebanese Red Cross said its teams came under fire while trying to evacuate the journalists from the house, forcing them to withdraw. The rescue crews were targeted by a warning strike and machine-gun fire, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Zeinab Faraj, a photojournalist, was rescued from the house. The other journalist, Amal Khalil, who was a reporter for Al-Akhbar, remained trapped under rubble for hours before emergency medics recovered her body, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense.
In addition to Ms. Khalil, the two people in the car in front of her were killed in the strikes, Al-Akhbar reported.
Amid the 10-day truce between Israel and Lebanon, Israel has continued strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, citing its right to self-defense. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group, said that it had fired rockets and drones into Israel on Tuesday in response to what it said were violations of the cease-fire. Earlier on Wednesday, the Lebanese News Agency reported that an Israeli drone strike killed one person and wounded two others in another part of the country.
The Lebanese health ministry called the strikes in Tayri a “blatant double breach, involving both the obstruction of rescue efforts for a civilian known for her media and humanitarian work, and the direct targeting of an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Cross.”
The Israeli military denied in a statement that it had prevented rescuers from reaching the injured journalists, and said the incident was under investigation.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said Israeli forces had spotted two vehicles emerging from a military building used by Hezbollah. The military observed the vehicles cross what the spokeswoman called the forward defense line, determining the move to be a violation of the truce agreement.
The spokeswoman confirmed that the Israeli military had struck one of the vehicles and the building some of the occupants of the second vehicle had taken shelter in.
Ms. Khalil had covered southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah exercises strong control, since at least 2006. In a tribute to Ms. Khalil, a colleague from Al-Akhbar said she embodied the resilience of the southern Lebanese through her relentless reporting, refusing to leave the front lines of war where thousands of Lebanese had been displaced.
“As with every act of aggression, wearing a press vest did not protect those who wore it from the treachery of the Israeli enemy,” Al-Akhbar said in a statement. “Instead, it has become a danger to journalists’ lives, as part of a systematic Israeli policy aimed at silencing anyone who seeks to expose the crimes and practices of the occupation.”
In a forceful statement on social media, Nawaf Salam, the Lebanese prime minister, accused the Israeli military of war crimes for targeting journalists and obstructing access to medical aid. He said that Lebanon would pursue action to ensure Israel is held accountable with international bodies.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said that it was outraged by the attack, and that it raised serious concerns of deliberate targeting.
“The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
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