The Guardian reports:

A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has called for “crippling sanctions” to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza.

The 31 signatories of a letter to the Guardian include an Academy award recipient, Yuval Abraham; a former Israeli attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair; Avraham Burg, a former speaker of Israel’s parliament and former head of the Jewish Agency; and a number of recipients of the prestigious Israel prize, Israel’s highest cultural honour.

The figures come from the worlds of poetry, science, journalism and academia, and the letter accuses Israel of “starving the people of Gaza to death and contemplating the forced removal of millions of Palestinians from the strip”.

It adds: “The international community must impose crippling sanctions on Israel until it ends this brutal campaign and implements a permanent ceasefire.”

The letter is significant both for its unvarnished criticism of Israel and for breaking the taboo of endorsing stringent international sanctions, in a country where politicians have promoted laws targeting those advocating such measures. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports:

At least 91 people have been killed and 600 wounded while waiting for aid in Gaza over the past 24 hours, as the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, visits Israel for ceasefire discussions and to inspect food distribution.

On Wednesday night, crowds of hungry people had gathered at the Zikim crossing with Israel, waiting for trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to enter the besieged strip, when they were shot. Al-Saraya field hospital said it had received more than 100 dead and wounded after the shooting, while the death toll was expected to rise, the Associated Press reported.

On Thursday morning, 19 people seeking aid were killed by Israeli soldiers outside aid distribution points in the central Gaza Strip and in Rafah in south Gaza. [Continue reading…]