A privately run aid organisation brought in to distribute food rations in war-hit Gaza last month with US and Israeli backing said Saturday that people in the Palestinian territory “desperately need more aid”.The admission by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that it has been unable to meet demand came after severe criticism from other aid groups and near-daily deadly shootings near distribution points.Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday that Israeli troops had killed at least 17 people, including eight who were seeking food in the territory which is suffering from famine-like conditions due to Israeli restrictions, according to aid groups.In a statement on Saturday, GHF interim executive director John Acree said that the organisation was “delivering aid at scale, securely and effectively… But we cannot meet the full scale of need while large parts of Gaza remain closed.”He said the GHF was “working with the government of Israel to honour its commitment and open additional sites in northern Gaza”.”The people of Gaza desperately need more aid and we are ready to partner with other humanitarian groups to expand our reach to those who need help the most,” Acree said.GHF’s operations have been slammed as a “failure” by the United Nations, while other aid groups have raised concerns about the group’s opaque structure and neutrality in the conflict that has been raging since October 2023.According to figures issued Saturday by the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 450 people have been killed and nearly 3,500 injured by Israeli fire since GHF began distributing meal boxes in late May.GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points, contradicting statements from witnesses and Gaza rescue services.It has said deaths have occurred near UN food convoys.On Monday, the head of aid group Doctors Without Borders, Christopher Lockyear, said that the “imposed system of aid delivery” in Gaza was “not only a failure, but it is dehumanising and dangerous”.Israel’s military has continued its operations in Gaza, even as attention has shifted to its ongoing war with Iran since June 13.- Restrictions -Israel’s ban on foreign media entering the Gaza Strip and difficulties for local journalists to travel in the territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and authorities.The Israeli army told AFP Saturday it was “looking into” the deaths which the civil defence agency reported near GHF distribution centres.In the past, the military has said that its troops have fired on crowds approaching them in a threatening fashion and only after warning shots.Witnesses have told AFP about injuries caused by drones and tank rounds.Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that three people were killed by gunfire in the southern Gaza Strip, with another five killed in a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, where thousands of Palestinians have gathered daily in the hope of receiving rations from a GHF centre.Earlier this week, the UN’s World Health Organization warned that Gaza’s health system was at a “breaking point”, pleading for fuel to be allowed into the territory to keep its remaining hospitals running.The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 55,908 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned Saturday of a “more devastating” retaliation should Israel’s nine-day bombing campaign continue, saying the Islamic republic would not halt its nuclear programme “under any circumstances”.Israel said on Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its unprecedented offensive, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed Tehran’s alleged progress towards a nuclear weapon had been set back by two years.”We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Saar told the German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel would keep up its onslaught.Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes since Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.On Saturday, Israel said it had attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time, with the UN nuclear watchdog reporting that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop had been hit.Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, and on Saturday Pezeshkian said its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme “cannot be taken away… by threats or war”.In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said Iran was “ready to discuss and cooperate to build confidence in the field of peaceful nuclear activities”.”However, we do not agree to reduce nuclear activities to zero under any circumstances,” he added, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.Referring to the Israeli attacks, he said: “Our response to the continued aggression of the Zionist regime will be more devastating.”Iran’s armed forces threatened to strike shipments of military aid to Israel “from any country”.Israel’s main arms supplier is the United States, whose President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes as Washington weighed whether to join Israel’s campaign.- ‘Not prepared to negotiate’ -Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Istanbul on Saturday for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the conflict.Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume nuclear talks with the United States that had been derailed by the war.But Araghchi told NBC News that “we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the Americans) anymore, as long as the aggression continues”.Trump, dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, said he was unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.”If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said of Israel’s campaign. Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.US B-2 stealth bombers capable of carrying bunker busters were flying across the Pacific Ocean, according to tracking data and media reports, fuelling speculation over their intended mission.Iran’s Huthi allies in Yemen on Saturday threatened to resume their attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, despite a recent ceasefire agreement.- Hundreds killed -A US-based NGO, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, said on Friday that based on its sources and media reports at least 657 people have been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.Iran’s health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed and 3,056 in the Israeli strikes.Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.The Israeli military said it launched a fresh wave of strikes on Saturday in the area of southern Iran’s Bandar Abbas, targeting drones storage sites and a weapons facility.Iran’s Tasnim news agency said air defences were activated in the area.Overnight, Iran said it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles. Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian drone struck a residential building.On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Israel said Saturday that an Iranian terror plot targeting Israeli citizens had been “thwarted”.- ‘Tired’ -Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles had been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.In Tel Aviv, where residents have faced regular Iranian strikes for nine days, some expressed growing fatigue under the constant threat from Iran.”In the middle of the night, we have to wake the children and take them to the shelter,” Omer, who gave only his first name, told AFP, adding he still supported Israel’s war aim of denying Iran a nuclear weapon.The streets of Tehran, meanwhile, were still largely quiet Saturday, though a few cafes and restaurants were open.In the afternoon, supporters of the government gathered briefly in front of the headquarters of state television to wave Iranian, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags to a soundtrack of electronic music whose lyrics called for the “death of Israel”.Western powers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme, questioning in particular the country’s accelerated uranium enrichment.International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi has said Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to enrich uranium to 60 percent.However, his agency had “no indication” of the existence of a “systematic programme” in Iran to produce a bomb.Grossi told CNN it was “pure speculation” to say how long it would take Iran to develop weapons.burs-csp/smw/ami

Thousands marched on Saturday outside a French trade fair, calling for an end to war profiteering and Israel’s offensive in Gaza in the latest demonstration to hit the event.The long-planned protest at the Paris Air Show outside the French capital also comes as Israel’s war with Iran drags on into a ninth day, with Tehran threatening to hit back in force at Israel’s offensive against its arch-rival.The presence of Israeli defence firms at the show has already become a bone of contention, with the French government on Monday sealing off the booths of five Israeli firms on the grounds that they were displaying offensive weapons that could be used in Gaza.”Their wars, their profits, our deaths, stop the genocide in Palestine,” read the banner at the head of the march, which organisers claimed drew more than 4,000 protesters.”As we speak, people are dying and our governments are not doing anything to stop it,” Nora, 29, told AFP at the protest. Draped in a Palestinian flag, the project leader in the pharmaceutical industry said that she felt “rage” at the footage coming out of Gaza, including that of “mothers kissing their dead children” in the besieged Palestinian territory.Police have arrested seven people aiming to disrupt the trade fair, the Paris public prosecutor office said, with officers discovering a helium canister and nearly 200 balloons during the searches.Six of the arrests were made on Friday and the other on Saturday, the prosecutor’s office added.Drawing some 100,000 visitors a day, the Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget airfield, nine kilometres (five miles) to the north of the capital, is usually dominated by displays of the aerospace industry’s latest cutting-edge planes. But Monday’s shuttering of the stands of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael, UVision and Elbit, as well as Aeronautics, which make drones and guided bombs and missiles, sparked a row with Israel.Israel’s President Isaac Herzog branded Paris’s closure of the Israeli firms’ booths “outrageous”, comparing it to “creating an Israeli ghetto”.It came days after Israel, claiming Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear bomb, launched a surprise barrage on June 13 which killed top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists.Tehran immediately hit back with a flurry of missiles, with the two countries trading wave after wave of devastating strikes since.