More than 100 aid organisations and human rights groups warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza, as the United States said its top envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and aid corridor.Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict.But it denied blocking supplies, saying that 950 trucks’ worth of aid were in Gaza waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute.”We have not identified starvation at this current point in time but we understand that action is required to stabilise the humanitarian situation,” an unnamed senior Israeli security official was quoted as saying by the Times of Israel.On the ground, the Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and the north, and had hit dozens of “terror targets” across the Palestinian territory.Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP that Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight, including a pregnant woman in Gaza City.- ‘Wasting away’ -The United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May — effectively sidelining the longstanding UN-led system.A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”.The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.The United States said its envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe this week for talks on Gaza and may then visit the Middle East.Witkoff comes with “a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.Even after Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade in late May, Gaza’s population is still suffering extreme scarcities.Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.GHF said the United Nations, which refuses to work with it, “has a capacity and operational problem” and called for “more collaboration” to deliver life-saving aid.COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said nearly 4,500 trucks entered Gaza recently, with flour, baby food and high-calorie food for children.But it said there had been “a significant decline in the collection of humanitarian aid” by international organisations in the past month.”This collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip,” it added.Aid agencies, though, said permissions from Israel were still limited and coordination to move trucks to where they are needed — and safely — was a major challenge.- ‘Hope and heartbreak’ -The humanitarian organisations said warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from delivering the goods.”Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the signatories said. “It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage,” they added.”The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.”The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said Tuesday that 21 children had died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory over the previous three days.Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with expectations that Witkoff would join the talks as they entered their final stages.More than two dozen Western governments called on Monday for an immediate end to the war, saying suffering in Gaza had “reached new depths”.Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,219 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The UK imposed sanctions Wednesday on more than two dozen people, groups and suppliers from the Balkans, the Middle East and China accused of helping migrants cross the Channel.In what it called a “landmark” first use of new powers, the move came as the government faces political pressure to stem migrant arrivals on small boats from northern France, at record levels.The asset freezes and travel bans announced target individuals and entities “driving irregular migration to the UK”, and include four “gangs” and “gangland bosses” operating in the Balkans, the Foreign Office said.They also hit a small boat supplier in China, so-called “hawala” money movers in the Middle East, and seven alleged people-smugglers linked to Iraq.Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it “a landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organised immigration crime” impacting the UK. “From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world,” he added.  “My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: we know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account.”- ‘Terrorising refugees’ -Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office a year ago promising to curb the journeys by “smashing the gangs” that facilitate the crossings, but he has struggled to deliver.Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest ever tally at this point in a year.The issue has become politically perilous in the UK, blamed for helping to fuel the rise of the far-right and violence at anti-migrant demonstrations. Protests have erupted sporadically outside hotels believed to house asylum-seekers, with a recent demonstration outside one in Epping, east of London, descending into clashes that injured eight police officers.Riots sparked by the stabbing to death of three young girls in northwestern Southport a year ago also saw suspected asylum-seeker hotels attacked and anti-migrant sentiment on display.    As part of its strategy to curb new arrivals, the government is also cracking down on illegal working, which European neighbours cite as a “pull factor” for UK-bound migrants.It announced late Tuesday a new agreement with delivery firms Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats which includes sharing the locations of asylum hotels to help tackle illegal working.Meanwhile in another new tactic, artificial intelligence technology will be trialled to assess disputed ages of asylum-seekers who claim to be children, the interior ministry said Tuesday.- ‘Far-fetched’ -Wednesday’s designations represent the UK’s first use of its new “Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime”.It claims the regime is a “world first”, empowering the Foreign Office to target foreign financiers and companies as well as individuals allegedly involved in facilitating people-smuggling to the UK.In all, it sanctioned 20 individuals, four gangs — two Balkan groups and two of North African origin operating in the Balkans — and Chinese firm Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co. It has advertised its small boats online “explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling,” the Foreign Office said.Among those facing curbs was Bledar Lala, described as an Albanian controlling “the ‘Belgium operations’ of an organised criminal group” involved in the crossings. The UK also targeted Alen Basil, a former police translator it accused of now leading a large smuggling network in Serbia, “terrorising refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen”. London hit alleged “gangland boss” Mohammed Tetwani with sanctions, noting he was dubbed the “King of Horgos” over his brutal running of a migrant camp in the Serbian town Horgos.Author and researcher Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the sanctions were “a new front in the UK’s efforts to control a business model that brings profit to the enablers” and misery to victims.”However, I would caution against overpromising,” he told AFP. “Talk of freezing assets and using sanctions to ‘smash the gangs’ seems far-fetched and remains to be seen. “History suggests that such assertions hold governments hostage to fortune.”