UK, Australia, allies say Gaza Strip war ‘must end now’

The war in the Gaza Strip should end immediately, and the Israeli government’s aid delivery model is “dangerous,” 25 countries have declared in a statement.

The United Kingdom and 24 other countries say Israel must immediately end its war in the Gaza Strip and have criticised what they called the “inhumane killing” of Palestinians, including hundreds near food distribution sites.

France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and other countries said more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid and condemned what it called the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians”.

The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in the Gaza Strip from a network led by the United Nations.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the countries’ foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths.”

Israel’s foreign ministry said the statement was “disconnected from reality” and it would send the wrong message to Hamas.

“The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation,” the Israeli statement said.

Much of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to a wasteland during more than 21 months of the war that began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023 killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s campaign in has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza Strip health authorities.

The call by about 20 European countries as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip and the delivery of aid comes from many countries which are allied with Israel and its most important backer, the United States.

The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into the Gaza Strip, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians.

Hamas denies the accusation.

The UN has called the GHF’s model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards, which the GHF denies.

The statement comes as Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern districts of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes hostages may be held.

The area is packed with Palestinians displaced during more than 21 months of war, hundreds of whom fled west or south after Israel issued an evacuation order, saying it sought to destroy infrastructure and capabilities of the militant group Hamas.

Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several others, local medics said.

To the south in Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children in a tent, medics said.

In its daily update, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 130 Palestinians had been killed and more than 1000 wounded by Israeli gunfire and military strikes across the territory in the past 24 hours.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis incidents.

Israeli sources have said the reason the army had stayed out of the Deir al-Balah districts was because they suspected Hamas might be holding hostages there.

At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in the Gaza Strip are believed to be still alive.

Families of the hostages have expressed concern for their relatives and demanded an explanation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and the army chief of how they will protect them.

“The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages – both the living and the deceased. No one will be able to claim they didn’t know what was at stake,” the Hostage Families Forum Headquarters said in a statement.

Israel responded in a tweet: Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejects the joint statement published by a group of countries, as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas. All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas, which started this war and is prolonging it. Instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel. At the same time, Hamas is deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid. There is a concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal, and Israel has repeatedly said yes to this proposal, while Hamas stubbornly refuses to accept it. The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation. Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides. At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind.”

Jeremy Leibler, President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said: “Let’s be clear: this war could have ended on the 8th of October, 2023, if Hamas laid down its arms, and returned all of the hostages.

Hamas is intent on prolonging the war, and are refusing to sign a ceasefire deal Israel has agreed to.

The Australian Government has rightly acknowledged that Hamas can have no further role in governing the Gaza strip; a permanent ceasefire without the return of the remaining hostages and the surrender of Hamas will not achieve this goal.

Delivering aid in Gaza is a complex issue; it’s critical aid is delivered to Palestinians in desperate need, at the same time, it’s unquestionable that Hamas is stealing and controlling aid to strengthen their position.

The Australian Government and international community must come together to put maximum pressure on Hamas to surrender, and to ensure aid deliveries are not misused to embolden Hamas’ grip on Gaza.”

“Let’s be clear: this war could have ended on the 8th of October, 2023, if Hamas had laid down its arms and returned all of the hostages.

Hamas is intent on prolonging the war, and is refusing to sign a ceasefire deal that Israel has agreed to.

The Australian Government has rightly acknowledged that Hamas can have no further role in governing the Gaza strip; a permanent ceasefire without the return of the remaining hostages and the surrender of Hamas will not achieve this goal.

Delivering aid in Gaza is a complex issue; it’s critical aid is delivered to Palestinians in desperate need, at the same time, it’s unquestionable that Hamas is stealing and controlling aid to strengthen their position.

The Australian Government and the international community must come together to put maximum pressure on Hamas to surrender, and to ensure aid deliveries are not misused to embolden Hamas’ grip on Gaza.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion commented: “No one wants this war to end more than Israel but that can only happen with the release of the 50 hostages and assurances that Hamas will not retain effective control over Gaza. There is immense suffering right now, which cannot be denied.

The solution is the permanent removal of the terrorist force that started this war and the release of all hostages. Anything less would guarantee a return to war and further suffering in the near future. All sides need a ceasefire but we also need to ensure this is the last Israel-Hamas war. World leaders should be calling for the immediate and unconditional surrender of Hamas, which is key to alleviating human suffering and needed by the Palestinians as much as by Israelis.”

Executive Director of The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, Dr Colin Rubenstein, said: “This badly misguided statement offers nothing constructive to help resolve the ongoing conflict in Gaza in a way that will provide security and normalcy for both Palestinians and Israelis, and in fact is likely to have the opposite effect.

It absurdly accepts Hamas propaganda claims about the situation in Gaza and the aid efforts there, often amplified by UN agencies, as proven facts. Moreover, calling for an ‘immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire’ and a return to the old UN-dominated aid system, which Hamas exploited routinely in order to maintain itself in power and keep the war going, can only benefit Hamas, not the long-term interests of Gazans.  It is particularly telling that Hamas has applauded the statement, while not only Israel, but the US mediators, who are urgently trying to reach a genuinely sustainable ceasefire, have been highly critical of it.”