Trump administration authorizes $30 million for Israeli-backed group distributing food in Gaza

Palestinians gather to receive aid supplies in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, June 23, 2025. (REUTERS)
Palestinians gather to receive aid supplies in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, June 23, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 25 June 2025
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Trump administration authorizes $30 million for Israeli-backed group distributing food in Gaza

Palestinians gather to receive aid supplies in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, June 23, 2025. (REUTERS)
  • Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading to the sites for desperately needed food, killing hundreds in recent weeks

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has authorized providing $30 million to a US- and Israeli-backed group that is distributing food in Gaza, a US official said Tuesday, an operation that has drawn criticism from other humanitarian organizations.
The request is the first known US government funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution efforts amid the Israel-Hamas war. The American-led group had applied for the money to the US Agency for International Development, which has been dismantled and will soon be absorbed into the State Department as part of the Trump administration’s deep cuts of foreign aid.
The application is part of a controversial development: private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue involving a controversial aid program, said the decision to directly fund GHF was made “to provide effective and accessible humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
The announcement comes as violence and chaos have plagued areas near the new food distribution sites since opening last month. GHF says no one has been killed at the aid sites themselves and that it has delivered some 44 million meals to Palestinians in need.
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading to the sites for desperately needed food, killing hundreds in recent weeks. The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner while going to the sites.
Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as crowds tried to reach a GHF site on Tuesday in southern Gaza. At least 19 were killed and 50 others wounded, according to Nasser hospital and Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Israel wants the GHF to replace a system coordinated by the United Nations and international aid groups. Along with the United States, it accuses Hamas of stealing aid, without offering evidence. The United Nations, its affiliated aid agencies and private humanitarian groups that work in Gaza have denied that there has been any significant theft of their supplies by Hamas.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that the American-led group had asked the Trump administration for the initial funding so it can continue its aid operation, which has been criticized by the UN, humanitarian groups and others. They accuse the foundation of cooperating with Israel’s objectives in the 21-month-old war against Hamas in a way that violates humanitarian principles.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters earlier Tuesday that she had no information to provide on funding for the foundation.

 


Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again
Updated 8 sec ago
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Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again
  • Arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month
JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the army had a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month.
The Israeli military will prepare an “enforcement plan to ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again,” Katz said in a statement, adding that “the army must prepare on the intelligence and operational level to ensure that the Air Force maintains air superiority over Tehran.”

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal
Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal
  • Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”

A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.

A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”

Abraham Accords

Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.

“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.

Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
Updated 04 July 2025
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Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed
Updated 04 July 2025
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Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.


Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says
Updated 03 July 2025
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Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says
  • The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said

IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.

There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.

The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.

The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.