Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
A tipping point in Israel’s genocide in Gaza?
Two of Israel’s most prominent human rights organisations have determined their country is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – the same conclusion reached by an overwhelming number of scholars, experts, and rights groups over the past 21 months. Thirty-one leading Israeli cultural figures have called on the international community to impose crippling sanctions on Israel to stop the unfolding horror. Their call echoes the demands protesters have been shouting in the streets and on college campuses across the world for nearly two years. Images of skeletal children are flooding global media. The world’s foremost body of experts on food insecurity said: “The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.” Aid workers are warning that Palestinians in Gaza have passed the tipping point with deaths from starvation accelerating. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flat-out denies that starvation is taking place. The measures Israel announced to bring more aid into Gaza – air drops and limited so-called humanitarian pauses – are an insufficient distraction, while the Israeli military continues to massacre people attempting to get extremely limited food supplies. The boldest Western governments have responded by attempting to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution, wielding the potential recognition of a Palestinian state as a threat to try – at this absurdly late hour – to pressure Israel into changing course. The crippling sanctions those prominent Israelis are calling for? Nowhere in sight. As The New Humanitarian’s CEO Tammam Aloudat wrote: “With all other actors abdicating responsibility, humanitarians must take the historical responsibility of halting this genocide.” Read his full call to action here.
Rival government announcement threatens to cement Sudan’s territorial split
A coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has announced members of a parallel government, further cementing Sudan’s territorial split between army and RSF-held regions. Paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo will head a 15-person council with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, head of one of Sudan’s biggest rebel groups, as deputy. The African Union urged member states to not recognise the administration, which wants to rival the Port Sudan-based de facto army-led government, which installed a prime minister in May. The RSF has been accused of genocide and crimes against humanity since it began fighting the army in 2023. Establishing a government is seen as a strategic move to gain legitimacy, rebrand the group’s image, acquire more advanced weaponry, and strengthen its position in the event of peace negotiations. The announcement was made just ahead of expected talks in Washington with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – all backing different sides in the war – but those talks have now been postponed, faltering like so many previous mediation efforts.
A deadly reminder of eastern DRC’s other rebels
An attack by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – a rebel group of Ugandan origin operating in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – that killed nearly 50 people last weekend is a reminder of the group’s enduring threat, even as its activities have been overshadowed by the focus on the Rwandan-backed M23 insurgency. The attack in Komanda, in the northeastern Ituri province, saw militants target churchgoers and displace some 30,000 people. The ADF formed in the 1990s after members fled to DRC amid military pressure in Uganda. It has its roots in the repression of Ugandan Muslims, though its complex history and modus operandi can be obscured by narratives that focus solely on its religious orientation and affiliation with the so-called Islamic State. The Ugandan army is currently conducting operations with the Congolese military against the group, but these efforts have not curbed violence against civilians. While some recent reports of ADF church attacks have turned out to be hoaxes (spread through right-wing and Christian media), conflict monitors routinely describe the group as the most lethal rebel outfit in the east. See our latest reporting for more insight.
Prominent Palestinian activist killed in West Bank Israeli settler attack
Extremist Israeli settler Yinon Levi shot and killed well-known Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen on 28 July in Umm al-Khair village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hathaleen was a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which chronicled the years-long effort of Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank region of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land in the face of Israeli efforts to displace them. Levi was the target of sanctions by the US and the EU due to his violent actions against Palestinians. However, the Trump administration lifted US sanctions on Levi earlier this year. He was released to house arrest after being charged with negligent homicide. In another incident on 31 July, Palestinian-American Khamis Abdul Latif Ayyad died of smoke inhalation while trying to put out fires started in an arson attack by Israeli settlers in the central West Bank village of Silwad. Although overshadowed by the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, violence by the Israeli military and settlers – resulting in deaths, injuries, and displacement – has reached record highs since October 2023. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, overwhelmingly adopted a symbolic motion endorsing the annexation of the West Bank on 23 July. The International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, has ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal under international law.
Tsunami disaster averted
One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck eastern Russia on 30 July, triggering a tsunami that sped across the Pacific at hundreds of kilometres an hour. But despite anxiety around the initial reports, the damage was minimal, largely thanks to early warning systems that have arisen and been improved since the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people in South and Southeast Asia. Experts at the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center – part of a US government agency targeted by Elon Musk’s budget cuts earlier this year – quickly assessed the potential impact. More than three million people in Japan, Hawaii, Chile, and the US received mobile alerts or evacuation instructions. In Russia, where the waves were highest, authorities said warning systems worked well and have reported no casualties. The results highlight the need for continued support for these systems.
Ecuador signs a deal with the US on organised crime and migration
Seventeen people were killed in an attack reportedly linked to a gang rivalry in a small town north of the port city of Guayaquil only days before US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neom visited the country and signed a deal to fight organised crime and illegal migration. The deal includes training for Ecuadoran security forces in the US and collaboration on border security. Once one of South America’s safest countries, Ecuador has registered a vertiginous uptick in violent crimes in the past few years, spurring a cascade of humanitarian needs. In response, President Daniel Noboa has adopted a series of hardline security policies that have raised concern over the risk of human rights abuses. The policies range from the repeated declaration of states of emergency, the construction of El Salvador-style prisons, and legislative changes to an alliance with private US military contractor Erik Prince. In 2007, Prince's company Blackwater – which has since rebranded and been sold – became infamous following a massacre of civilians carried out by its mercenaries in Baghdad.* Noboa has also replicated some of US President Donald Trump's deportation tactics, returning more than 600 Colombian prisoners to their country in late July with no official notice. For more on the humanitarian fallout of insecurity in Latin America, read our series Gangs out of control.
Weekend Read
Rita’s Gaza evacuation diary
Rita Baroud, a 22-year-old journalist from Gaza City, has penned an incredibly powerful, three-part diary chronicling her experience surviving nearly 570 days of genocide, evacuating to France, and beginning to navigate life in Marseille as the horrors in her homeland grow ever worse.
Read the full series:
The final weeks were the hardest
“The opportunity to leave came unexpectedly, like a small window opening in the midst of darkness. But I also didn’t want to go.”
Crossing the gate to exile
“We were 115 people, each one carrying a city of pain inside – a demolished home in their heart, an incomplete goodbye, a quiet voice whispering, ‘I want to go back’.”
I survived, but I haven’t truly left
“I live between two worlds: My body is here, but my soul is still there, in Gaza.”
And finally…
Global food security: The good, the bad, the ugly
The UN’s flagship State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (SOFI) report was launched to much fanfare at a summit in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on 28 July. It reported – with significant caveats – that world hunger showed “signs of improvement in recent years”. The reduction of malnutrition in Asia – following a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic – was a main driver behind the somewhat rosy picture. But critics fear the report – compiled by five UN agencies using 2024 data – is deceptive. The NGO Action Against Hunger said the SOFI report “masks a worrying reality, particularly in conflict zones… where mass starvation is spreading”. The day after the SOFI report was published, the IPC, the world’s foremost authority on food insecurity, warned that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”. The bad news doesn’t end there. With this year’s dramatic cuts to international aid funding, “the worst may be yet to come”, warned Kate Munro, director of advocacy at Action Against Hunger UK.
* A previous version of this entry incorrectly stated that the security and risk management company Constellis was formerly known as Blackwater. Constellis acquired some of Blackwater's assets, but there is no ongoing relationship between the two companies.
