UN agency says Israel blocking delivery of ‘warehouses full of food’ to Gaza – Middle East crisis live | Gaza

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said spoken by phone with his French, German and British counterparts in a bid to prevent a vote on UN sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme, just days ahead of a European deadline.

The call came as the three European powers threatened to trigger the “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which allows any party to reimpose sanctions if they believe Iran is not complying with commitments such as international monitoring of its nuclear activities.

Iran’s parliament voted to suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after Israeli and US airstrikes on its nuclear facilities in June, despite ongoing negotiations over the nuclear programme, according to Iranian media.

After the call, a statement released on Araghchi’s behalf via Telegram criticised the three countries’ “legal and moral qualifications” to threaten sanctions but insisted that talks would continue.

The statement said:

The Islamic Republic of Iran, just as it acts authoritatively in self-defence, has never abandoned the path of diplomacy and is ready for any diplomatic solution that guarantees the rights and interests of the Iranian people.

French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed on X that the discussions had taken place and said another round of talks would happen next week.

We have just made an important call to our Iranian counterpart regarding the nuclear programme and the sanctions against Iran that we are preparing to reapply… time is running out.

That view was echoed by UK foreign secretary David Lammy and the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, while Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said:

Iran needs to engage substantively in order to avoid the activation of snapback. We have been clear that we will not let the snapback of sanctions expire unless there is a verifiable and durable deal.

Any renewed sanctions effort could face pushback from China and Russia, with both countries having a veto as permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says it has warehouses full of food, medicines and hygiene supplies in Jordan and Egypt but is being blocked from bringing them into Gaza.

“While famine is confirmed in Gaza City, we have warehouses full of food waiting to be allowed in,” the agency said in a post on X.

Famine in Gaza City can be stopped. Reverse the ongoing catastrophe – flood Gaza with a massive scale up of aid through the United Nations including UNRWA. … There is enough food, medicines and hygiene supplies ready to fill 6,000 trucks. The State of Israel must let us bring aid into Gaza.

It comes after the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed an “entirely man-made” famine in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, warning of an exponential increase in deaths if conditions continue to deteriorate.

Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and wider regional diplomacy.

Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed civilian model of aid distribution in Gaza, according to a joint report from Forensic Architecture (FA) and the World Peace Foundation (WPF), which said the move has furthered both Israel’s military objectives and starvation in the territory.

The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine in Gaza this week. UK foreign secretary David Lammy described the situation as a “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” and condemned Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into the enclave. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the famine assessment, saying it ignored what he described as recent humanitarian steps by his government.

Plan International UK, a children’s charity, said the famine was “an entirely man-made hunger catastrophe” that is killing children daily. The group warned that 130,000 Palestinian children are threatened by malnutrition.

Meanwhile, foreign ministers from European countries, Australia and the UK condemned Israel’s plans to construct a settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, calling the move “unacceptable” and a violation of international law.

Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database, seen in a joint investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call, suggest that five out of six Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians. By May, Israeli officials had listed 8,900 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters as dead or “probably dead”.

The Red Cross has joined international voices condemning Israel’s plan to expand its military operations and seize Gaza City, calling the proposal “intolerable.”

Relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza urged Netanyahu’s government to accept a proposed ceasefire, warning that rejection would be “a death sentence for the living hostages and a sentence of disappearance for the deceased ones.”

In regional diplomacy, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and his French, British and German counterparts agreed to resume talks next week on nuclear and sanctions issues. European powers have warned they could trigger a UN “snapback” mechanism to reimpose sanctions if Iran does not return to negotiations over its uranium enrichment programme.

We will be following today’s developments. Stay with us.