Australia dust storm turns town orange

“I think the best thing that can be done now is for this plan to be cancelled, to be reversed, and for us professional humanitarians in the UN and NGOs to do our job. There are tonnes and tonnes of aid waiting across the border. [It’s a] very simple decision: open the gates and keep them open.”Israel made the GHF, a Swiss-based entity formed in February through back-channel meetings between Israeli-linked officials and business figures, a lead aid distributor. Meanwhile, Israel has blocked the UN and other international organisations from bringing in aid.

Despite being promoted as a neutral body, the GHF’s close ties to Israel and the US have prompted widespread condemnation. Its former head suddenly resigned this week, citing the foundation’s inability to uphold the core humanitarian principles of “neutrality, impartiality and independence”.According to a report in The New York Times, the GHF emerged from “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and businesspeople with close ties to the Israeli government”.Israel has said its forces are not involved in the physical distribution of aid, although it backs the system’s use of biometric screening, including facial recognition, to vet aid recipients. Palestinians fear it is another Israeli tool of surveillance and repression.

Critics have also warned that the GHF’s structure – and its concentration of aid in southern Gaza – could serve to depopulate northern Gaza, as planned by the Israeli military.‘This is definitely not enough’

While the previous UN-led distribution network operated about 400 sites across the Strip, the GHF has set up only four “mega-sites” for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

In Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported that many of the food parcels being handed out were inadequate to sustain families.“And we had a lot of people, I must tell you Mr. President [Ramaphosa], we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they’ve seen this – generally they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa.”

Earlier this month, 59 white South Africansas part of a refugee programme set up by Trump to offer sanctuary to them.

Trump’s claim echoes white nationalist beliefs that legislation in South Africa aimed at rectifying apartheid is now, in fact, discriminatory against the Afrikaner community.Right-wing organisations, such as the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, have been championing a narrative that Afrikaners are under an existential threat.