Devastation in Gaza as Israel wages war on Hamas

The UK's three major opposition parties, the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party (SNP) are calling on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to justify its arms trading with Israel following an IDF military strike which killed seven aid workers Monday.

SNP leader and Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf who is the head of the devolved Scottish government wrote to Sunak personally to "demand an immediate end to arms sales to Israel from the United Kingdom." 

In the letter dated April 3, Yousaf criticized Sunak's failure to address the arms issue following the aid worker killings particularly as Israel he said shows no sign of "paying heed to the International Court of Justice’s ruling or the recent United Nations Security Council Resolution." 

A call also came from Liberal Democrat party leader, Ed Davey who said his party has consistently "called for far tougher control of arms exports." Finally, Sunak's main opposition, the Labour Party has said arms sales must be suspended if UK government lawyers find Israel's actions in Gaza to be in breach of international law. 

Last week, British newspaper, The Observer said it had obtained an audio recording of Conservative MP and Foreign Affairs Committee chair, Alicia Kearns, saying UK government lawyers have advised the government that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza. 

More than 600 lawyers, legal academics and former members of the British judiciary have written to Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, warning him that the UK Government is falling "significantly short" of its obligations under international law over continued Israel arms exports.

The letter, sent to the prime minister on Wednesday evening, says that “serious action” is needed to “avoid UK complicity in grave breaches of international law, including potential violations of the Genocide convention.”

The 17-page letter, signed by some of the UK’s most senior lawyers, including three former supreme court justices, puts increasing pressure on Sunak to take action following the death of three British citizens who were killed by an Israeli air strike on Monday.

Sunak told the Sun newspaper on Wednesday that the government keeps a "careful" review over arms licensing.

The UK government has assessed defense exports to Israel as "relatively small" — at £42 million ($53 million) — a fraction of US exports.

Gaza municipality warned on Thursday that diseases are spreading due to waste pile-up and sewage overflow as a result of Israel’s bombardment.

In a statement on X, Gaza municipality called on local and international institutions "to help improve the health and environmental conditions in Gaza and enable the municipality to provide services that the aggression has caused near complete paralysis in."

Health officials in Gaza have been warning of the increasing threat of infectious diseases, as access to food and medicine remains impeded.

Gaza's public health crisis: The United Nations, international aid agencies and non-governmental organizations have also been sounding the alarm about the catastrophic impact of poor sanitation and the healthcare system collapse in Gaza. 

Last month, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that “catastrophic healthcare conditions are impeding the disease management of thousands of chronically ill patients in Gaza.”

The Israeli military has temporarily suspended leave for its combat units, a day after announcing it would increase recruitment and call up air defense reserves.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday that the decision to pause leave was made following a “situational assessment.”

“The IDF is at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment according to requirements,” the Israeli military said in a statement. 

Some context: On Wednesday, the IDF said it would increase recruitment and call up reservists for its air defense.

It comes as Iran has vowed to retaliate after it accused Israel of bombing its embassy complex in Syria on Monday, in a deadly escalation of regional tensions over the war in Gaza that once again appeared to raise the risk of a wider Middle Eastern conflict.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has criticized Israel’s explanation for the killing of seven international aid workers in Gaza as “not good enough."

One Australian, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, was among those killed in the strike Monday.

On Tuesday, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the Israel Defense Forces airstrike on three cars carrying humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK), saying: “This happens in war.”

Albanese appeared to reference that remark at a news conference Thursday.

Albanese said he spoke with Netanyahu on Wednesday morning, and was told Israel is "committed to a full and proper investigation."

"I want that to be transparent, and I want those findings to be made public so that we find out how exactly this can occur," Albanese told reporters Thursday.

The IDF has said the incident is being investigated, that the strike was a “grave mistake” and that it did not intend to harm the aid workers.

The chief of staff of the Israeli military, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, apologized for the strike and described it as “a mistake that followed a misidentification.” 

The victims: According to her LinkedIn page, Frankcom had worked with WCK since 2019, most recently as a senior manager of its operations in Asia.

A dual US-Canada national, a Palestinian, three Brits, and a Pole were also killed by the IDF strike.

Read about the victims here:

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Who were the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Israel's strike in Gaza? | CNN

Non-profit organization World Central Kitchen (WCK) is calling for an independent, third-party investigation of the Israeli strikes that killed seven of its employees in Gaza this week.

The aid workers killed in the attack on Monday were from Australia, Canada, the US, Poland, the UK and Gaza.

WCK said it has asked the Israeli government "to immediately preserve all documents, communications, video and/or audio recordings, and any other materials potentially relevant" to the strikes in order to "ensure the integrity of the investigation."

The organization's founder, José Andrés, has accused Israel of "systematically" targeting the seven aid workers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces "unintentionally struck innocent people," and the Israeli military's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the strike was a "grave mistake."

The Israeli military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, according to an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call.

The investigation by the online publication, jointly run by Palestinians and Israelis, cited six Israeli intelligence officials involved in the alleged program – who also allege that human review of the suggested targets was cursory at best.

The officials said the AI-based tool was called “Lavender” and was known to have a 10% error rate.

When asked about +972 Magazine’s report, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) did not dispute the existence of the tool but denied AI was being used to identify suspected terrorists.

It added that analysts independently examine whether targets "meet the relevant definitions in accordance with international law and additional restrictions stipulated in the IDF directives.”

However, one official told +972 “that human personnel often served only as a 'rubber stamp' for the machine’s decisions” and typically devoted only around 20 seconds to each target – ensuring they are male – before authorizing a bombing.

Read more about the investigation here:

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Israel is using artificial intelligence to help pick bombing targets in Gaza, report says | CNN

World Central Kitchen has yet to decide when it will resume its humanitarian operations in Gaza after seven workers were killed Monday night in an Israel airstrike.

WCK founder José Andrés accused Israel of systematically targeting the aid convoy. 

A United Nations aid agency is also suspending its movements at night for at least 48 hours, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said after the attack that, according to a CNN analysis, appeared to have consisted of multiple precision strikes.

Meanwhile US President Joe Biden, who expressed outrage over the strike, will speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, according to a US official.

Here's the other news from the region:

President Joe Biden’s scheduled call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday will not simply test the leaders’ increasingly sour relationship.

It will also highlight a glaring contradiction in US policy toward the war in Gaza, a conflict that potentially poses an existential threat to both leaders' political careers.

While Biden is expressing growing frustration about the Israeli leader’s conduct of the military onslaught and its impact on civilians – including the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza this week – the fundamentals of staunch US support for Israel are not shifting.

And at the same time as the White House is demanding changes to Israeli procedures to shield civilians, warning a planned assault on Rafah could cause a humanitarian disaster, the administration is moving toward approving a sale of F-15 warplanes worth $18 billion to Israel, sources told CNN this week.

The Biden-Netanyahu call will also come amid renewed fears in Washington that Israel’s actions could spark the regional conflagration that Biden has been desperate to avoid. A strike on senior Iranian officers in Syria on Monday, which the US attributes to Israel, has drawn vows of retaliation, which could again put US troops in the region at risk.

Building pressure: The conversation will take place with both leaders under enormous domestic pressure and amid signs their political priorities are irreconcilable. Biden badly needs the war to end to ease anger among progressives that is threatening his weakened political coalition ahead of November’s election. But Netanyahu may need to prolong it to stave off elections many US leaders believe he would lose.

It’s not impossible that the crisis could end up driving both of them out of office.

Read the full analysis here.