The scandal-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed initiative to distribute aid in Gaza, has said that UN figures on the number of aid seekers killed at distribution points are “false and misleading”.

The UN rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings of Palestinian aid seekers near US-run aid points and convoys run by other relief groups in Gaza over the last six weeks.

Of that figure, 615 were killed near GHF sites and 183 were thought to be on aid convoy routes, OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters at a press briefing.

However, GHF told Reuters that “the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys”.

The OHCHR said its figures are based on a range of sources such as information from hospitals in the Gaza Strip, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.

Shamdasani said that most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds.

“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food,” she said.

CNN reported on Tuesday that the US government ignored “critical concerns” raised by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) around the initiative’s ability to deliver aid safely and effectively in Gaza.

A source familiar with GHF’s application told CNN on the condition of anonymity that the paperwork was “abysmal” and “sorely lacking real content”.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to work with GHF, saying it serves Israeli military goals and violates basic humanitarian principles.

Israeli troops have admitted to deliberately shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip, following direct orders from their superiors.

On July 1, more than 170 NGOs called for immediate action to end the “deadly” US and Israeli-backed aid scheme and urged a return to UN-led aid coordination mechanisms.

Reporting by Reuters

The World Food Programme said Friday it is suspending food and nutritional assistance across crisis-hit West and Central African countries as a result of U.S. aid cuts, which are grinding the organization’s operations to a halt.

While the timeline varies, food stocks are projected to last until around September for most of the affected countries, leaving millions of vulnerable people potentially without any emergency aid, according to the WFP.

“We are doing everything we can to prioritize the most life-saving activities, but without urgent support from our partners, our ability to respond is shrinking by the day. We need sustained funding to keep food flowing and hope alive,” Margot van der Velden, the WFP’s regional director, told The Associated Press.

Seven countries are affected in the region, with the suspension of operations already underway in Mauritania, Mali and the Central African Republic, where food stocks are projected to last only a few weeks. Aid distribution has already been significantly scaled down in Cameroonian camps for Nigerian refugees in the country, according to the WFP.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to cut USAID and critical funding to the United Nations has left many aid agencies struggling to survive despite the worsening humanitarian crises across the Sahel and other parts of Africa, where jihadist groups have continued to expand their operations.

Millions of people are expected to be immediately affected, according to WFP data seen by the AP, including 300,000 children in Nigeria at risk of “severe malnutrition, ultimately raising the risk of death”.

The International Rescue Committee this month said there was a 178% rise in inpatient admissions at its clinics from March-May in northern Nigeria, where 1.3 million people depend on WFP aid.

Displaced people in Mali have not received any emergency food supplies since June, which marked the start of a period during which food production is at its lowest in the Sahel.

Despite the continued influx of refugees from North Darfur due to the ongoing Sudanese conflict, emergency food supplies in Chad will only last to the end of the year. Niger faces a total suspension of food aid by October.

These countries are already in the grip of escalating humanitarian crises, sparked by constant attacks by multiple terrorist groups, where thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, the U.N. says. The attacks have been exacerbated by worsening climate conditions that have affected harvests and struggling economies across the continents.

“The consequences are not just humanitarian but potentially affecting the stability of the entire region,” Van der Velden said.

The WFP says it needs $494 million to cover the second half of 2025, but the funds have been totally depleted, forcing it to prioritize the most vulnerable groups. In northern and central Mali it will prioritize newly displaced refugees and children under five.

Experts say the fallout of the suspension of the WFP’s operations in the vulnerable countries will worsen the security challenge as it makes it more likely for jihadist groups to recruit.

“It becomes a more complicated crisis because in regions where the WFP operations are focused because the same challenge also intersects with security. It is going to bode double jeopardy,” said Oluwole Ojewale, a Dakar-based security analyst at the Institute of Security Studies.

He added: “When hunger comes on top of the layers of other challenges, it compounds the issue, and we have seen people take to terrorism and violent extremism basically because they couldn’t survive the biting reality of poverty.”

11h ago 08.45 BST Barnaby Joyce vows to wind back ‘lunatic crusade’ of net zero Sarah Basford Canales The Nationals MP and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has vowed to wind back the “lunatic crusade” of net zero in a private member’s bill once parliament resumes later this month. Joyce, who now sits as a backbencher within the Nationals, described the policy to reduce carbon emissions by 2050 to net zero as “treacherous” to Australia’s security in a post on Facebook this afternoon. Private members’ bills are often not considered or debated and Joyce is certainly no stranger to climate change and net zero scepticism. In 2023, Joyce labelled the estimated cost of net zero “utterly untenable” ahead of a Nationals motion to ditch the policy at the party conference. In 2015, Joyce teamed up with his now-retired colleague Keith Pitt to urge the Coalition to walk away from the Paris agreement and its associated climate targets. In this afternoon’s post, Joyce claimed committing to net zero was akin to self-immolation unless the majority of countries “authentically” participated in it: There is no more time to assess, to ponder, to nuance or to amend. Net Zero must be repealed and as such, I will, at my first opportunity bring forward a bill to do that. Share Updated at 09.44 BST

11h ago 08.39 BST Melbourne man accused of stealing van struck by police car before arrest Victoria police has described the moment a man accused of stealing a car and evading officers jumped from the vehicle, before being struck by a police car. According to police, the accused stole a vehicle on St Kilda Road in Melbourne while a man was washing it at a car wash. The vehicle was later spotted in Footscray and followed by a police helicopter. A police spokesperson has alleged the man was driving erratically through several suburbs including Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Spotswood, Carnegie, Sunshine, Dandenong and Point Cook: The van was involved in collisions with several parked and moving vehicles. At this stage, it is understood there are no serious injuries. The spokesperson said the vehicle came to a stop after crashing into a street sign at an intersection in Point Cook. The force said the man then leaped from the vehicle and was “struck by an unmarked police car”: Looking at what happened, I don’t think anyone would have expected [him] to bail out of the window like he did when he did. The 36-year-old Point Cook man sustained non-life-threatening injuries. Police say he was arrested and transported to hospital under police guard. Share Updated at 09.08 BST

11h ago 08.28 BST Democracy in Colour urges government to tackle all forms of racism Democracy in Colour, an advocacy organisation led by people from racial and ethnic minorities, has urged the federal government to combat all forms of racism with equivalent urgency. The group has raised concerns that the antisemitism’s envoy Jillian Segal’s recommendations to the federal government may be “ineffective in tackling racism comprehensively”. Here’s the group’s national director, Noura Mansour: Democracy in Colour stands firmly against all forms of discrimination: from systemic racism against First Nations people, to antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism. We also stand resolutely in defence of our civil rights as individuals, groups and communities to exercise our freedoms without fear of defunding, smearing, demonisation, or physical harm. We call upon all marginalised communities to reject draconian measures designed to protect the powerful while suppressing dissent. Instead, we must work together to build bridges and unite behind the principles of human rights, equality, and justice for all. Share Updated at 09.10 BST

12h ago 08.04 BST Antisemitism plan goes ‘too far in some ways, and not far enough in others’, UN rapporteur says Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, says Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism goes “too far in some ways, and not far enough in others”. Saul believes the antisemitism envoy’s call for the widespread adoption of the definition of antisemitism prepared by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016 is problematic: Firstly, it was intended to be a non-binding monitoring and awareness raising tool, not an operational definition for disciplining staff or students, cutting funding to universities or arts institutions, censoring the media or excluding immigrants – strategies which appear similar to the Trump Administration’s. Secondly, the IHRA approach is not consistent with human rights and excessively infringes on legitimate freedom of expression. The IHRA approach is divisive and controversial, including among Jews. This alone makes its adoption counter-productive, because it can never build the consensus necessary to unify national efforts to effectively combat antisemitism. You can read the full piece from Saul here: Australia must combat antisemitism, but not simply defer to demands of some voices | Ben Saul Read more Share Updated at 09.20 BST

12h ago 07.49 BST Tom McIlroy Nacc architect calls for public update on robodebt investigation A key architect of the National Anti-Corruption Commission has called for a public update on the investigation into the illegal robodebt scheme, warning community confidence in the watchdog and its commissioner, Paul Brereton, is on the line. The independent MP Helen Haines, who helped craft legislation to establish the Nacc and has sat as a member of a parliamentary oversight committee, said it had been “too secretive” in the first two years of operations, including over its investigation into the Coalition’s welfare payment recovery scheme. As many as 440,000 Centrelink recipients were hounded over alleged incorrect payments, based on faulty income averaging algorithms. Haines, the MP for the Victorian seat of Indi, said it was disappointing the commission had not provided transparency over its U-turn on a decision to investigate six individuals referred by the robodebt royal commission, after an independent review into its initial refusal. Nacc architect calls for robodebt investigation update, saying corruption watchdog has been ‘too secretive’ Read more Share Updated at 07.56 BST

12h ago 07.32 BST We need more women in our party, Kovacic says The Liberal senator Maria Kovacic says the party must consider whether its base reflects modern Australia and consider changes. Here’s what she told the ABC a few moments ago: One of the issues we need to look at is how our broader party base reflects modern Australia and then how that then leads into our parliamentary representation. We need more women in our party. That’s an absolute fact. We only have six women in the lower house of our federal parliament. Share Updated at 08.04 BST

13h ago 07.23 BST Government has recognised stronger regulation of childcare is needed, Thistlethwaite says Matt Thistlethwaite has also told the ABC the federal government has recognised that stronger regulation of the childcare sector is needed to protect children: Obviously we’re going to have to do more. We’ve realised that as a government. The education minister, Jason Clare, has convened a meeting of state education ministers. That was the major topic of discussion. We know we need to strengthen the regulations [and] look at things like a register of childcare workers, greater checks on their backgrounds and the like. We’ll do what it takes to ensure the safety of children and the welfare of parents. Share Updated at 07.26 BST

13h ago 07.19 BST ‘PBS is off the table’ in Trump trade talks, Thistlethwaite says The assistant foreign minister, Matt Thistlethwaite, has continued to outline the federal government’s commitment to safeguarding the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Donald Trump has threatened to impose 200% tariffs on drug imports to the US, amid growing warnings the president’s growing trade war will seriously damage the global economy. Thistlethwaite says Australian diplomats will try to negotiate to remove those tariffs, but will not negotiate on the operations of the PBS, which he described as “off the table”. Here’s what he told the ABC: When you look at the Australian healthcare system, there’s two fundamental foundations: Medicare and the PBS. They have produced one of the best healthcare systems in the world, where Australians enjoy relatively high living standards and healthier outcomes compared to the rest of the world. We’re not going to jeopardise that in any way. So we’ve said we’re happy to negotiate on other issues, but the PBS is off the table. Share Updated at 07.29 BST

Benjamin Netanyahu arrived back in Israel on Friday without a ceasefire in the Gaza war despite heady predictions from US and Israeli officials that this week could provide a breakthrough in negotiations. But he did not come home completely empty-handed.

The Israeli PM’s visit was his third since Donald Trump’s inauguration, with several high-profile meetings at the White House, a nomination for Trump to receive the Nobel peace prize, and suggestions from Trump and the special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, that peace could be achieved in a week.

But as Netanyahu’s trip ended, no clear results had been achieved. Witkoff postponed a trip to Doha on Tuesday as it became clear that the negotiations had not reached a point where they could produce a ceasefire agreement.

While Netanyahu repeated a refrain that a ceasefire could be announced within days, a deal to bring peace to more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remained elusive.

“I hope we can complete it in a few days,” Netanyahu said during an appearance on Newsmax, a conservative, pro-Trump news network on Wednesday. “We’ll probably have a 60-day ceasefire. Get the first batch [of hostages] out and then use the 60 days to try to negotiate an end to this.”

By Thursday, when he attended a memorial service for two Israeli embassy staff killed in Washington, Netanyahu said Israel would not compromise on its demands for Hamas to disband. “I am promoting a move that will result in a significant liberation, but only on the conditions Israel demands: Hamas disarm, Gaza demilitarise,” he said. “If it is not achieved through diplomacy, it will be achieved by force.”

Several officials suggested during the week that only a single sticking point remained between negotiators in Doha: the extent of a withdrawal by the Israel Defense Forces that would follow the release of some of the hostages being held by Hamas. The White House had pushed back against an initial map that would have left Israel with significant zones of control in Gaza, which Witkoff had compared to a “Smotrich plan”, referring to the hardline Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. Israel reportedly redrew that map to make it more palatable to the US administration.

But Hamas has said there were other disagreements, including negotiations over whether the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, an Israeli and US-backed logistics group, would be allowed to continue to deliver food to the territory (the UN said on Friday that 798 people had been killed trying to reach GHF sites since its introduction in May) and whether Israel would agree to a permanent truce, which it has said it would not. US mediators sought to bridge the gap by telling Qatari intermediaries they would guarantee the ceasefire’s continuation after 60 days as negotiations continued.

The upshot is that while Netanyahu leaves the US without a ceasefire, he has managed his relationship with Trump through high-profile assurances that he is seeking a peace in Gaza, while maintaining a status quo that members of his rightwing coalition, including the ministers Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have said is preferable to a peace deal.

For Netanyahu, the trip produced images that reinforced Israeli claims there was “no daylight” between him and Trump, and came as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced a decision to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, a UN expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, for urging the international criminal court to investigate Israeli officials and US companies over the Gaza war.

Trump’s frustrations with Netanyahu appeared to be boiling over a month ago as the US president sought to negotiate a truce between Iran and Israel, which had been trading airstrikes and missile barrages as Israel sought to dismantle the Iranian nuclear programme.

“I’m not happy with Israel,” he said on the White House lawn. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

That recalled remarks by Robert Gates, a former US secretary of defence, about successive White House administrations’ difficulties in managing an ally in the region that also had considerable political influence in the US.

“Every president I worked for, at some point in his presidency, would get so pissed off at the Israelis that he couldn’t speak,” Gates said.

But a full breach with the US would have been disastrous for Netanyahu, who is managing his own difficult coalition and has been targeted in a graft investigation at home that was again delayed as a result of his international travel. And, after joint strikes against Iran, the Israeli PM was keen to show that the two men were in lockstep, while giving the Trump administration an opportunity to show it was working toward a Gaza peace.

Elliott Abrams, the senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said the Trump administration had sought, as it did during the first short-lived ceasefire, to bring “pressure to bear on Israel directly” through discussions with Netanyahu and his chief lieutenant, Ron Dermer, and “trying to bring pressure on Hamas mostly through the Qataris, when there are these talks in Doha”.

He added: “Whether that pressure is effective is unclear.”

At least 798 people have been killed while seeking food at distribution points operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and other humanitarian convoys since the end of May, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday.

The GHF, proposed by Israel as an alternative to the UN aid system in Gaza, has been almost universally condemned by rights groups for its violation of principles of humanitarian impartiality and what they have said could be complicity in war crimes.

“Up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” the OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

Israel backed the GHF after claiming that Hamas diverted aid from the UN-led aid system, a claim for which the UN said there was no evidence. The private company employs American mercenaries to oversee four food distribution zones, as opposed to the previous 400 non-militarised zones run under the UN system.

The GHF said the UN figures were “false and misleading” and denied that deadly incidents occurred at its sites. “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said.

In Gaza, the GHF has become infamous for the near-daily shootings of people seeking food who have queued to receive meals since the group started operating in early May. Palestinians seeking food have to navigate a complicated set of instructions and stick to specific routes, as well as walk long distances to access the food sites. Even then there is no guarantee they will be safe.

On Friday medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its teams in Gaza were witnessing “a sharp and unprecedented rise in acute malnutrition”, with the number of cases at its Gaza City clinic nearly quadrupling over the past two months.

On Friday, at least 10 people were killed and more than 60 injured when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd in Rafah, southern Gaza, according to Ahmad al-Farra, the head of paediatrics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, which received the dead and wounded.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed overnight and on Friday by Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza, including a strike on a school serving as a refugee shelter.

“The situation in the hospital was like it always is during massacres: extreme overcrowding, shortage of medical supplies and medicines, and a very high number of injured compared to the number of doctors,” saidFarra.

Treatment units were set up outside the hospital to cope with the influx of patients as hallways inside filled with the wounded.

The situation in the hospital, one of the few medical facilities still operating in southern Gaza, was made more difficult after the Israeli military operated in the surrounding areas overnight.

Doctors reported shells landing nearby and heavy gunfire on the outskirts of the hospital, with a number of patients arriving with gunshot wounds.

The areas around the hospital were filled with encampments for displaced people and witnesses said Israeli forces had stationed tanks and fired teargas at tents. Two residents reported Israeli soldiers in a nearby cemetery, while one said they saw the soldiers exhuming bodies there.

View image in fullscreen Palestinians inspect the destruction at a makeshift displacement camp and adjacent cemetery after a reported incursion by the Israeli military in Khan Younis. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Israeli forces withdrew from the surrounding areas in the morning, but Farra warned the hospital only had enough fuel for the next 48 hours unless new supplies arrived. Already, air-conditioning had to be shut off in the hospital to preserve power, amid the sweltering summer heat.

Nahla Abu Qursheen, a 35-year-old mother of four who fled the tanks on Thursday, said those who did return to the encampment found their tents destroyed. Pictures sent to the Guardian showed ruined tents amid deep furrows in the ground on Friday.

“I still don’t know what happened to our tent. We are still here on the street. Last night was very difficult – missiles and shelling. My children slept on top of each other, just to fit under a single piece of cloth,” Qursheen said, exhausted from sleeping in the street.

Israel has intensified its airstrikes on Gaza over the last week, as negotiators report a ceasefire deal is in sight, but not yet achieved.

The US president, Donald Trump, said on Wednesday he was optimistic a deal was possible this week or next, during the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Hamas reportedly agreed to release 10 hostages of the 50 that remain, during the two-month ceasefire period.

Qatari mediators have warned a ceasefire will take time, as key stumbling blocks remain. Hamas wants assurances that Israel will not restart fighting as it did in mid-March after the first Gaza ceasefire, while Israel is seeking the complete expulsion of Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has floated the proposal of relocating the population to a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza, which legal experts have described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.

Juliette Touma, the communications director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said such a plan would worsen the humanitarian crisis and forcibly displace people in Gaza.

The war in Gaza started after Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages on 7 October 2023. More than 57,000 people have been killed during Israel’s 21 months of military operations there.

As negotiations drag on, people in Gaza say they are losing hope.

“They say there is a truce, they say! Every day they say it will end today or tomorrow, but it’s all lies. Wake up and stop this war. Enough of the death, the hunger and the constant displacement,” Qursheen said.